Truebit hacker launders $26 million in ETH via Tornado Cash

Key Takeaways

• The hacker behind the Truebit exploit fully laundered 8,535 ETH through Tornado Cash.
• The Truebit team is coordinating with law enforcement and conducting a protocol review following the attack.

The Truebit hacker has laundered all 8,535 ETH stolen, valued at approximately $26 million, through Tornado Cash after exploiting a smart contract vulnerability in the Truebit Protocol on January 8, according to data tracked by Lookonchain.

The exploit marks the year’s first major DeFi breach. The attacker abused an integer overflow in a legacy smart contract to mint millions of TRU tokens at near-zero cost, then sold them back into the protocol to drain its liquidity.

The attack crashed TRU by more than 99.9%, wiping out investor value.

Blockchain security firms later linked the wallet to a prior Sparkle Protocol hack, suggesting a highly sophisticated actor.

In response, the Truebit team urged users to halt interactions with the compromised contract, engaged law enforcement, and launched a comprehensive review to assess potential recovery options.