$90M in Crypto Burned in Nobitex Hack as XRP Sent to Political Burn Wallet

A major cyberattack on Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, has resulted in the permanent destruction of over $90 million in digital assets, including a large amount of XRP. The stolen assets were deliberately sent to burn wallets containing anti-regime messages, rendering them completely unrecoverable.

Chainalysis, a blockchain intelligence business, reported that the attacker did not use common money laundering channels. Instead, they sent the funds across several blockchains to custom vanity addresses that appear to be inaccessible.

These addresses have been specially designed to burn their assets where there is no known private key with the capacity to help locate the same.

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XrpScan, one of the biggest trackers of the XRP ledger, said that destroyed assets included 373,852 XRP tokens. According to their update on X, the XRP was sent to a burn address structured in a way that made recovery impossible.

This move has drawn attention within the XRP community, as such burns reduce supply and can impact price over time.

Political Motive Revealed Through Coded Blockchain Wallets

Further investigations revealed the use of politically coded wallet addresses. One of the Bitcoin addresses began with “1FuckiRGCTerroristsNoBiTEXXXaAovLX,” a statement against Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Chainalysis released a flowchart tracking the funds’ journey from Nobitex to wallets with similarly themed messages across multiple chains.

Hackers struck on June 18, shortly after Israel launched Operation Rising Lion on June 13, which targeted Iranian nuclear and military installations and triggered continued retaliatory attacks from Iran.

These developments are thought to be involved in the cyberattack, with messages in the wallet addresses seemingly suggesting a political motive as opposed to a financial one.

The hacktivist group Predatory Sparrow has claimed responsibility for the breach. In a press release, the collective threatened that Nobitex’s source code would be released soon.

Experts believe the exchange could struggle to secure funding or operate normally, especially as scrutiny intensifies around its digital infrastructure and security protocols.

Following the attack, Nobitex has been weakened. Analysts have opined that the exchange might not be able to find funders or conduct business as usual, and it is receiving much attention on its digital platforms and security mechanisms.

This incident reflects a shift in cyberattack strategies, where political motives take precedence over profit. With millions in assets burned, including a significant amount of XRP, the Nobitex hack marks a new chapter in crypto warfare.

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