Is The Bybit Crypto Hack The Future? DePIN Looks To Make Web3 Much Safer

A price chart on the Bybit website for the cryptocurrency Ethereum is seen on a computer screen in ... [+] New York on Friday evening, Feb. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Patrick Sison)
Associated Press
The Bybit hack sent shockwaves through the global digital finance community shining a spotlight again on central crypto exchange security. The $1.4 billion ETH heist is the biggest crypto theft of all time, architected by the North Korean Lazarus Group, and appears to be the biggest theft of any kind in history.
The hack comes swiftly on the back of the crypto industry celebrating the newly installed Trump presidency and the administration’s commitment to making America the crypto capital of the world with a new Executive Order ‘Strengthening American Leadership In Digital Financial Technology’ Executive Order, a deluge of new appointments, and talk of a strategic bitcoin reserve.
The hack is likely to dent consumer confidence in crypto and will raise further questions by policymakers keen to put the brakes on digital finance technologies. The Bybit hack continues a trend which saw $2.36 billion lost in 2024 across 760 security incidents from Web3 projects according to a CertiK’s Hack3d report.
What is important for citizens, businesses, policymakers and regulators to understand, is the Bybit hack was the result of human error, and has nothing to do with crypto or blockchain technology per se – just like the FTX bankruptcy was the result of human fraud, and weaknesses of new digital technologies.
Bybit was breached by a sophisticated phishing hack, deceiving the human signing officers who all needed to authorize the fraudulent transfer of cryptocurrency from Bybit’s digital wallet to the Lazarus Group’s digital wallet, though a function known as “multisig wallets” for their requirements for multiple signatures to enable a transaction.