$35.5 Million Transfer Linked to Nomad Bridge Hack Raises Alarms

Significant Movement of Funds Linked to Nomad Bridge Hack

A wallet associated with the notorious $200 million hack of the Nomad cross-chain bridge in 2022 has recently executed a substantial transfer of 14,500 ether (ETH), valued at approximately $35.5 million at current market rates. This alarming transaction was reported by the blockchain security firm PeckShield.

According to data from Arkham Intelligence, the wallet in question received a substantial influx of funds on Monday, amounting to $39.75 million worth of the dai (DAI) stablecoin. Notably, this transfer originated from an address previously flagged as the “Nomad Bridge Exploiter.”

In a series of strategic maneuvers, the DAI was converted into ETH through the trading protocol CoW, executed in $2 million increments. Subsequently, a series of transactions were directed to the coin-mixing service Tornado Cash on Thursday.

Tornado Cash functions as a privacy tool, designed to obfuscate transactions by distributing transfers across multiple wallets over an extended timeframe. This service has come under scrutiny, as it was sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) in 2022 due to its association with illicit activities.

The Nomad Bridge hack, which occurred in 2022, saw attackers exploit vulnerabilities by spoofing transactions. This method tricked the bridge into allowing unauthorized withdrawals of assets that did not belong to the attackers. Crypto bridges, which facilitate the transfer of assets across different blockchains, have emerged as a significant target for cybercriminals in recent years, largely due to the innovative yet complex technology they employ.

In a similar vein, the Ronin bridge suffered a staggering $625 million exploit in the same month as the Nomad incident, further highlighting the growing trend of cyberattacks targeting decentralized finance platforms.