Bybit Gets US Court Approval to Track $1.5 Billion Stolen in North Korea-Linked Hack

Crypto exchange Bybit has received approval from a US court to move forward with efforts to trace roughly $1.5 billion in digital assets stolen in a major hack tied to North Korean actors. The legal green light gives the exchange a formal path to pursue recovery through the American court system as investigators continue working to track where the funds ended up.

Most of the Stolen Crypto Remains Untraceable

Despite the court’s approval, recovering the bulk of the funds remains a major challenge. Around 90% of the stolen assets have already passed through mixing services and cross chain bridges, tools commonly used to obscure the origin and movement of cryptocurrency, making that portion of the funds extremely difficult to trace at this stage.

Recovery Efforts Show Limited Progress So Far

Out of the total amount stolen, only about $75.5 million has been frozen or successfully recovered to date. The case highlights the ongoing difficulty exchanges and law enforcement face when trying to reclaim large sums of cryptocurrency once they move through privacy-focused laundering tools, even with legal backing to pursue the funds.