(Bloomberg) — Digital-asset exchange OKX has suspended a service used by hackers to launder some of the proceeds from a $1.5 billion heist on trading platform Bybit, after drawing scrutiny from European watchdogs.
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“After consulting with regulators, we made the proactive decision to temporarily suspend our DEX aggregator services,” OKX said in a statement on Monday. “This move allows us to implement additional upgrades to prevent further misuse.”
The move comes after a Bloomberg News report said regulators had zeroed in on the use of OKX’s Web3 service by Bybit hackers — which authorities have linked to North Korea — to launder an estimated $100 million of proceeds from the heist. The February hack was the biggest and among the most sophisticated to hit the crypto industry so far.
OKX and Bybit have been at odds over the Web3 service’s role in how hackers laundered the stolen assets. Bybit Chief Executive Officer Ben Zhou said in a March 4 post on X that the OKX platform had been used to funnel $100 million of hacked funds.
A spokesperson for OKX said the DEX aggregator was used for “price discovery,” and that any trading orders routed through the platform were executed on other exchanges.
“Claims of money laundering on the OKX platform are misleading,” the OKX spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “The OKX DEX aggregator is simply a router that discovers the best prices for the trade and points the trade to that destination for execution.”
OKX is subject to the European Union’s new Markets in Cryptoassets, or MiCA, regulations. National watchdogs from the European Union’s 27 member states discussed the exchange’s Web3 service at a meeting hosted by the European Securities and Markets Authority’s Digital Finance Standing Committee on March 6, according to the Bloomberg News report.
OKX markets its Web3 platform as a decentralized-finance platform and self-custodial wallet that gives crypto traders access to various exchanges and blockchains. The DEX aggregator is one of the services offered through the Web3 wallet, a spokesperson for the company said.
Founded in 2017 and based in the Seychelles, OKX offers trading in over 300 cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin and Ether over its centralized exchange. In July, the company said 53 million individual wallets had been created on its separate Web3 service, adding that the platform covered 100 different blockchains.
