Bybit has already paid more than $4 million to bounty hunters who helped trace and freeze some of the stolen funds.

According to Bybit's holdings, that amounts to $1.5 billion in cryptocurrency that was stolen from Bybit and its customers, making this the largest ever cryptocurrency theft. However, as Molly White of Web3IsGoingGreat points out, the hacker can't exactly cash out $1.5 billion in Ethereum, because an amount that high would crash the value of ETH.

Less than 72 hours later, Zhou said Bybit had restored the exchange’s balance and kept customer withdrawals open, although he did not account for the stolen crypto. The scale of the Bybit theft surpasses the previous record of a $615 million heist of Ethereum and U.