Kronos Research hacker moves $3.7M to Tornado Cash after Ethereum price surge

The transfer occurred after Ether’s price rose over 20% during the past day, boosted by a potential U-turn by the United States SEC.

The hacker behind the $25 million Kronos Research exploit has transferred another $2.6 million worth of Ether to the cryptocurrency mixing service Tornado Cash.

The transfer, worth 700 Ether (ETH), occurred from the Kronos exploiter wallet “0x3″on May 21, according to an X post by on-chain security firm PeckShield.

The exploiter sent three transactions worth 100 Ether each on May 20, followed by today’s seven additional 100 ETH transactions, bringing the total to 1,000 Ether worth over $3.7 million at today’s price.

Following the transfer of 1,000 Ether, the wallet is still holding a little over 60 ETH, worth over $223,000. At peak, the hacker’s wallet was worth over $6.4 million on May 19, CoinStats data shows.

The hacker’s decision to launder the funds is likely due to Ether’s rapid price surge. Ether price rose over 20% during the past 24 hours to trade at $3,744 as of 11:14 am UTC. The last time Ether traded above $3,700 was on March 15, according to CoinMarketCap.

The Ether rally follows reports that the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has U-turned on spot Ether ETFs — possibly due to political pressure — with reports stating it has asked ETF exchanges to update their 19b-4 filings.

Adding to the bullish investor sentiment, senior Bloomberg ETF analyst Eric Balchunas has increased the odds of approval to 75% from just 25%.

Related: Fidelity reportedly amends Ether ETF S-1 filing, removes ETH staking

Crypto mixing protocols like Tornado Cash are used to obscure the path of crypto transactions and make it extremely difficult to trace the source of the funds — which can be used by exploiters when laundering crypto from illicit activities.

The Kronos Research hacker hasn’t moved funds since May 7, when the exploiter transferred 1,314 Ether worth over $4 million to the same crypto mixing service.

Kronos Capital was exploited in November 2023 after the exploiters managed to gain access to the firm’s application programming interface keys. The firm first denied any loss of funds during its early announcement.

Later, on-chain investigator ZachXBT revealed that roughly 12,800 ETH worth $25 million was stolen and transferred into six unique crypto wallet addresses. Kronos Capital halted its trading services to investigate the loss.