ZachXBT Unmasks $28M Bittensor Hacker via Anime NFT Trail

TheCryptoTimesОпубликовано 2025-10-16Обновлено 2025-10-16

Crypto sleuth ZachXBT has uncovered how $28 million was stolen from Bittensor. In a recent post, he said that he followed a trail that led through anime NFT trades and traced the funds back to a former Bittensor worker after unmasking hidden transactions made through the Railgun crypto mixer.

According to ZachXBT, 32 TAO holders lost funds between May and July 2024 after a malicious PyPi package caused private key leaks. Consequently, the Bittensor network halted operations on July 2, 2024, while developers investigated the breach. He started tracing the stolen TAO tokens that were moved to Ethereum and later exchanged for Monero (XMR) using quick-swap platforms.

Following the crypto trail

ZachXBT followed the stolen funds to a wallet known as 0x09f, which moved about $4.94 million into Railgun in June 2024. He identified three wallets that extracted the funds by comparing the quantity and timing of payments and withdrawals. The trail showed 1,246 ETH, 276,000 USDC, and 19.8 WETH were shifted to Avalanche and then back to Ethereum using the Synapse Bridge.

The investigation took a surprising turn when address 0x1d7 purchased four Killer GF NFTs for 18.64 ETH, grossly overpaying the floor price. Moreover, related wallets 0x0bc7 and 0x5e9c exchanged NFTs between themselves using stolen funds, showing clear wash trading patterns. These unusual trades connected the theft to a wallet tied to “Rusty,” a person using the alias otc_rusty, who once worked as an Opentensor engineer.

Real world links and legal fallout

ZachXBT revealed that Rusty (Ayden B) later admitted ownership of the identified wallets during a civil lawsuit, though he denied involvement in the hack. Another individual, Jon L (0xJones), also became a suspect after deleting messages and deactivating his accounts post-incident.

“It’s extremely rare to see exploits or hacks involve NFT wash trading,” ZachXBT noted, emphasizing how coordinated the addresses appeared. Moreover, he said law enforcement could move forward with criminal proceedings based on these findings.

ZachXBT’s findings show that in crypto, digital trails can still reveal the truth behind hidden transactions. The case reveals that careful tracking and transparency help uncover complex hacks.

Also Read: MIT Brothers on Trial for $25M Crypto Theft Case

Mobile Only Image

Похожее

Six Complaints from an Ethereum Developer

A disgruntled early Ethereum developer and token holder presents six core criticisms of the project's trajectory, contrasting it with Solana's rise. 1. **Premature Complacency**: The Ethereum Foundation shifted from a "building" to an "infrastructure" mindset too soon, adopting a passive, "retired chairman" posture before securing market dominance, reflected in ETH's ~65% decline against BTC post-Merge. 2. **Misguided Messaging**: The Merge was marketed primarily on ESG (99.95% energy reduction) rather than user benefits like speed or yield, appealing to internal ideals instead of market demands. 3. **Delayed Execution**: Proof-of-Stake, on the roadmap since 2015, took seven years to launch, ceding critical narrative and development windows. Competitors like Solana built entire ecosystems in that time. 4. **Poor Native Staking UX**: Years after the Merge, there is still no first-party, user-friendly staking application, forcing reliance on centralized services like Lido and undermining ETH's "sound money" narrative. 5. **Managed Decline**: The rollup-centric roadmap deliberately weakens the base layer's fee capture, outsourcing value and profitability to L2s like Arbitrum and Base, which issue their own tokens and fragment capital. 6. **Ideology Over Product**: Ethereum culture prioritizes philosophical purity ("credible neutrality," "public goods") over competitive product delivery that meets user demands (e.g., financialization), while Solana's ecosystem focuses on coordinated execution. The diagnosis is accumulated execution debt, not a coordination failure. Ethereum possessed a structural advantage in 2021 but spent years in governance debates, while Solana efficiently executed. The current market cap reflects these specific strategic failures, not abstract theory.

marsbit12 мин. назад

Six Complaints from an Ethereum Developer

marsbit12 мин. назад

Six Complaints from an Ethereum Developer

Six Grievances from an Ethereum Developer The author, an early investor and developer still building on Ethereum, expresses deep frustration with its trajectory and declining ETH/BTC price since the merge. The core argument is that Ethereum's current market position stems from concrete failures in execution and strategy, not abstract coordination problems. The first grievance targets a shift in the Ethereum Foundation's mentality from builders to "infrastructure," adopting a premature posture of a retired victor. Second, marketing the Merge around ESG (99.95% energy reduction) is seen as talking to its own conscience rather than the market, which prioritizes user experience and yield. Third, the seven-year delay in delivering Proof-of-Stake (PoS) ceded critical narrative and development time to competitors like Solana. Fourth, three years post-merge, there is still no user-friendly first-party staking application, forcing reliance on centralized services like Lido and undermining ETH's monetary narrative. Fifth, the rollup-centric roadmap has strategically surrendered base-layer fee capture to L2s, fragmenting value within the ecosystem while Solana demonstrates an integrated L1's value accrual. Finally, the author criticizes an institutional culture that prioritizes philosophical ideals (credible neutrality, pluralism) over competitive product delivery focused on what users actually want. The diagnosis is "accumulated execution debt." Ethereum possessed a structural advantage in 2021 but spent years in governance debates, while Solana's ecosystem coordinated efficiently to deliver and capture the next wave of value. The conclusion is that Ethereum's market cap reflects its abandonment of the fight for asset appreciation.

链捕手22 мин. назад

Six Complaints from an Ethereum Developer

链捕手22 мин. назад

Token Budget Wars: Enterprise AI Enters the 'Accounting Era'

Token Budget Wars: Enterprise AI Enters the "Accounting Era" Enterprise AI is shifting from the question of "whether to adopt" to "how to account for it." As AI inference costs evolve from experimental budgets into ongoing operational expenses, CEOs and CFOs are demanding proof of value: what tangible results does each dollar spent on tokens deliver? The core of "Token Budget Wars" is not simply about reducing AI bills, but about intelligently allocating compute resources. It involves determining which business processes warrant more computational power, which tasks can use cheaper models, which can be outsourced or handled manually, and which are merely inefficient consumption. A key insight is that AI usage (token consumption) does not equal value. While SaaS usage indicated software adoption, AI token usage only indicates the "meter is running." The same workflow can cost vastly different amounts due to factors like prompt quality, context, model choice, and retries. The critical metric for scaling is "marginal token utility"—the business value created per additional dollar of inference cost. However, this is difficult to measure due to challenges like the long tail of retries, context inflation (where costs can scale quadratically with context length), and inefficient model routing (defaulting to the most powerful model for all tasks). The competition for token allocation is intensifying because, in the AI era, influence is tied to how much intelligence one can command, not just team size. AI spending is essentially competing with labor costs, whether for replacing external BPOs, internal staff, or generating new revenue. BPO contracts provide a clearer benchmark as they are priced per completed unit. The missing layer is attribution from tokens to business outcomes. Companies need a system that connects inference spending to completed work and results, capturing the agent's decision trajectory—what it saw, retrieved, tried, and why it succeeded or failed. This recorded rationale becomes a valuable asset. Ultimately, those who master token-to-outcome attribution will control the allocation of AI resources within enterprises, deciding which workflows get more compute, which are capped, or which revert to humans. The first phase of enterprise AI proved models could do the work. The next phase will determine how much of that work is worth paying for.

marsbit48 мин. назад

Token Budget Wars: Enterprise AI Enters the 'Accounting Era'

marsbit48 мин. назад

Anthropic's Revenue Surpasses OpenAI by at Least 35%, IPO Race Dynamics Shift

Anthropic has overtaken OpenAI in revenue by at least 35%, according to a recent report. Anthropic's annualized revenue is now approximately $45 billion, compared to OpenAI's roughly $33 billion. This represents a dramatic five-fold revenue increase for Anthropic over the first five months of the year, while OpenAI saw growth of just over 50%. The profitability gap is even more significant. Anthropic is expected to post an operating profit in Q2 with around a 5% margin. In stark contrast, OpenAI reported a massive operating loss of over 100% of its revenue in Q1, equating to a loss of at least $7 billion for the quarter. OpenAI also faces substantial costs, including paying 20% of its revenue to Microsoft and high AI server rental fees. This financial reversal impacts their potential IPO timelines. Previously, OpenAI might have been favored to go public first, but now its leadership may view an accelerated IPO as a "more financially prudent choice" to avoid direct, unfavorable public market comparisons. If Anthropic, with its superior growth and profitability metrics, were to file for an IPO first, it would gain a significant valuation advantage. At its current growth rate, Anthropic's revenue could soon surpass major tech firms like Netflix and Salesforce within a year.

marsbit1 ч. назад

Anthropic's Revenue Surpasses OpenAI by at Least 35%, IPO Race Dynamics Shift

marsbit1 ч. назад

US Debt Exceeds $39 Trillion, Surpassing GDP for First Time: The 'Gray Rhino' Every Investor Must Face by 2026

The U.S. national debt has exceeded $39 trillion, with the debt-to-GDP ratio surpassing 100% in 2026 for the first time since WWII. The annual interest payment is projected to reach $1.039 trillion. Driven by structural factors like tax cuts, rising entitlement spending (Social Security, Medicare), and compounding interest, the deficit persists. The Congressional Budget Office warns the current fiscal path is unsustainable, projecting debt could reach 175% of GDP by 2056. While the U.S. is unlikely to default as it issues its own currency, the consequences include persistent inflation pressure, higher long-term interest rates (e.g., 30-year Treasury yields at 5.2%), and potential crowding out of private investment. A fiscal crisis could manifest as a sudden, sharp spike in borrowing costs if market confidence erodes. Major credit rating agencies have downgraded U.S. debt, reflecting these concerns. For investors, this signals the end of the era of permanently low interest rates. Equity investors should favor companies with strong current earnings over high-growth stocks reliant on low discount rates. Bond investors face headwinds for long-term Treasuries due to increased supply, making shorter-duration bonds and investment-grade corporates relatively attractive. Gold and real assets can provide a hedge against currency debasement risks. Three broad scenarios are possible: gradual stabilization through fiscal reform (unlikely given political gridlock), a slow-burn of high debt and interest rates dragging on growth (the most probable baseline), or a sudden loss of market confidence triggering a crisis. Key indicators to watch include CBO report updates, Treasury auction demand, and the 30-year Treasury yield. The core takeaway for investors is the need to adjust portfolios for a world of sustained higher government borrowing costs and interest rates.

marsbit1 ч. назад

US Debt Exceeds $39 Trillion, Surpassing GDP for First Time: The 'Gray Rhino' Every Investor Must Face by 2026

marsbit1 ч. назад

Торговля

Спот
Фьючерсы
活动图片

Популярные категорииright-arrow

Популярные тегиright-arrow