While the scale of the exploit spans multiple blockchains, the attacker’s actions reveal this was no ordinary theft. According to blockchain intelligence firm Chainalysis, the funds were not laundered or moved to cashout services but instead sent to vanity addresses designed to burn the assets.

No Recovery Possible for Thousands of XRP Stolen

Chainalysis noted that this tactic effectively burned the stolen crypto, as these custom addresses are presumed to have no known private keys, making recovery of the assets impossible.

XRPScan, the XRP Ledger tracker, weighed in on X, revealing that the stolen XRP (373,852 tokens) was also sent to a vanity address with no private key, effectively lost forever.

XRP funds from the recent Nobitex hack were sent to a vanity address with (presumably) no known private key. It is highly likely that the funds are now effectively burned: https://t.co/fUcbrjzvsE https://t.co/app93ztapk

— XRPScan (@xrpscan) June 19, 2025

This news excited some in the XRP army, as the massive token burn contributes to the asset’s deflationary model, creating scarcity and potentially increasing its price. However, this has yet to affect its price, as the asset is trading at $2.14, down 1.05% from yesterday.

Funds Burned Through Politicized Vanity Addresses

While 2025 has seen some notable crypto scams and thefts, this attack was different. It unfolded across various chains on June 18, 2025, with transactions traced from Nobitex to addresses embedded with overtly political messages. A visual flowchart released by Chainalysis illustrates how digital assets left Nobitex and were dispersed into multiple receiving wallets.

We are on X, follow us to connect with us :- @TimesTabloid1

— TimesTabloid (@TimesTabloid1) June 15, 2025

This incident adds to the growing list of significant crypto breaches in 2025, including the $1.46 billion ByBit hack that occurred in February. However, this theft was not about making money. These destinations were carefully crafted addresses that contained parts of the hacker’s ideological message.

One address, created on the Bitcoin blockchain, started with the string “1FuckiRGCTerroristsNoBiTEXXXaAovLX,” (Fuck iRGC Terrorists NoBiTEX) a direct political statement about the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also known as the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, embedded in the destination of the funds.

Rising Tensions and More Threats to Asset Holders

Israel launched Operation Rising Lion on June 13, targeting over 100 Iranian nuclear and military sites. In response, Iran has engaged in sustained missile and drone barrages against Israeli targets, resulting in hundreds of casualties on both sides.

The hackers have been identified as Predatory Sparrow, a hacktivist group, who have threatened to release the exchange’s source code and warned that all assets on the exchange are “entirely out in the open.” Given the current situation, Nobitex may have trouble securing loans, such as Bybit.

Disclaimer: This content is meant to inform and should not be considered financial advice. The views expressed in this article may include the author’s personal opinions and do not represent Times Tabloid’s opinion. Readers are advised to conduct thorough research before making any investment decisions. Any action taken by the reader is strictly at their own risk. Times Tabloid is not responsible for any financial losses.

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The post 373,852 XRP Stolen from Iran’s Largest Exchange Is Lost Forever. Here’s why appeared first on Times Tabloid.

A report by Chainalysis suggested that this withdrawal is the largest made by BTC-e since April 2018. The report says that both BTC-e and WEX, an exchange regarded that BTC-e’s successor, sent small amounts of BTC to Russian electronic payments service Webmoney on October 26 before making a test payment on November 11, followed by 100 BTC on November 21.

Read Also: Binance CEO To Crypto Community: Bitcoin (BTC) Is Not Dead. We Are Still Here

Out of the total amount sent, 9,950 BTC is thought to still be located in personal wallets, while the rest was moved through intermediaries before ending up at four deposit addresses in two large exchanges.

Ki Young Ju, the co-founder of the blockchain analytics firm Cryptoquant, also verified the report, stating that may represent sell-side liquidity because they were sent to exchanges.

In a tweet on November 24, Young Ju shared screenshots of the transaction, pointing out that the BTC has been dormant for over seven years.

Ki Young Ju tweeted, “7-year-old 10,000 BTC moved today. No surprise, it’s from criminals, like most of the old Bitcoins. It’s the BTC-e exchange wallet related to the 2014 Mt. Gox hack. They sent 65 BTC to @hitbtc a few hours ago, so it’s not a gov auction or something.”

7-year-old 10,000 $BTC moved today.

No surprise, it's from criminals, like most of the old Bitcoins. It's the BTC-e exchange wallet related to the 2014 Mt. Gox hack.

They sent 65 BTC to @hitbtc a few hours ago, so it's not a gov auction or something.https://t.co/6LnCxFAJfX https://t.co/YdPrvJafxY pic.twitter.com/Sp2higUqbq

— Ki Young Ju (@ki_young_ju) November 24, 2022

In the same thread of tweets, Young Ju called on the crypto exchange HitBTC to suspend the account for suspicious activity.

Read Also: Billionaire Tim Draper Explains Why He Believes Bitcoin (BTC) Will Surpass $250,000 in the Long Run

About Mt. Gox

Mt. Gox was a Tokyo-based crypto exchange that once accounted for over 70% of Bitcoin transactions. In 2014, the exchange was hacked with thousands of Bitcoin stolen, the exchange filed for bankruptcy shortly after.

BTC-e, which had its servers located in the United States, had its website shut down and funds seized by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in 2017 after allegations that it was involved in money laundering, including crypto stolen during the Mt. Gox exchange hack.

According to Chainalysis, at the time of its shutdown BTC-e still held “a substantial amount of Bitcoin,” and in April 2018 moved over 30,000 BTC out of its service wallet.

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According to the analysis by the blockchain data platform, the collapse of TerraUSD (UST) played out in three stages.

The data shows that a few large trades broke UST’s peg, which triggered a selloff. Although there were attempts to restore the peg, the continued selloff drained the funds and made the mission to restore the lost peg impossible.

Read Also: $559.6 Million Used By Three Arrows Capital (3AC) to Acquire Locked LUNA Now Worth $670

Chainalysis Detailed How the TerraUSD (UST) Collapse Happened

According to Chainalysis, on the 7th of May, Terraform Labs (TFL), the firm behind the development of Terra blockchain led by Do Kwon, withdrew 150 million UST from the decentralized exchange 3pool as part of a pre-planned public move to send the funds to another pool.

The whopping withdrawal drastically reduced the liquidity in 3pool. About 13 minutes later, an anonymous trader who seemingly wanted to leverage this vulnerability swapped a total of 85 million UST for USDC.

Afterward, another anon trader swapped 25 million UST on four different occasions in the space of one hour, draining a total of 100 million UST in a short while.

According to the report, Terraform Labs also withdrew another 100 million UST to rebalance the ratio of UST to other stablecoins, but by that time, UST had lost its peg. This triggered investors to start withdrawing funds locked in Anchor Protocol.

The report further stated that between the 7th and 9th of May, three anonymous traders swapped a total of $480 million worth of USDT for UST in an attempt to restore the peg. Although the stablecoin showed a sign of recovery after the whopping swaps, it was still not enough.

Likewise, on May 8, the Luna Foundation Guard (LFG), the non-profit behind the Terra ecosystem, started to convert its billions of dollars worth of reserves to UST in order to aid its price increase to meet the peg. But by May 10, its reserves were drained, and a massive plunge in UST price then followed.

Read Also: Do Kwon Refutes Cashing Out $2.7 Billion Worth of LUNA and UST Before the Crash, Shares His Side of the Story

Why Terra (LUNA) Price Crashed

At the same time, the liquidity of 3pool was vanishing, which made investors to start burning UST to mint LUNA. This action quickly increased LUNA’s supply to trillions and subsequently dipped its price to fractions of a dollar.

In conclusion, Chainalysis wrote, “UST’s collapse may pose a threat to consumer confidence in the short term and serve as a legislative catalyst in the long term, but it’s unlikely to stop the growth of responsible innovation in the industry. Fortunately, thanks to blockchains’ transparency, we can learn from these incidents, educate others, and continue to build trust in cryptocurrency.”

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The post Chainalysis Pinpoints Large Trades That Triggered TerraUSD (UST) and Terra (LUNA) Collapse: Details appeared first on Times Tabloid.

According to the firm, it was decided to investigate criminal whales in the industry by analyzing their balances. The report defines a criminal whale as any private wallet holding $1 million or more worth of crypto that has received over 10% of its funds from illicit addresses.

The report reads in part as follows:

‘Please recognize that because criminal whale balances are calculated based on private wallet holdings, while overall criminal balances are calculated based on the holdings of addresses tagged as illicit (meaning they can include funds held at services in addition to private wallets), the criminal whale balances discussed here won’t align with the overall criminal balances calculated…”  

Criminal Whales Jointly Hold over $25 Billion

After the investigation, Chainalysis identified 4,068 criminal whales holding over $25 billion worth of crypto. They represent 3.7% of all cryptocurrency whales — that is, private wallets holding over $1 million worth of digital currency.

The firm revealed in the chart that 1,374 criminal whales received between 10% and 25% of their total balance from illicit addresses. 1,361 criminal whales received between 90% and 100% of their total balance from illicit addresses. While 1,333 criminal whales received between 25% and 90% of all funds from illicit addresses.

The firm noted:

“Illicit funds received by criminal whales also come from more varied sources than the funds making up overall criminal balances.”

According to the report as indicated in the chart above, darknet markets are the biggest source of illicit funds sent to criminal whales, followed by scams and stolen funds.

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