Saving Bybit: Supporting $320 million, who are the white knights everyone is talking about?

Author: flowie, ChainCatcher

Editor: TB, ChainCatcher

Within 12 hours after nearly $1.5 billion was stolen, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou stated that the withdrawal system has fully returned to normal.

In the face of the largest theft in crypto history, in addition to the textbook crisis and public relations handling by the Bybit team, various parties supporting Bybit are also working to alleviate the immense pressure on the crypto ecosystem.

Support of $320 million, who are the white knights everyone is talking about?

As of the time of writing, according to Yu Jin monitoring, 5 institutions and individuals have provided loan support to Bybit, totaling approximately 120,000 ETH, valued at about $321 million. Specifically, they include:

Bitget: Supporting with a loan of 40,000 ETH to alleviate withdrawal pressure

This morning, Bitget supported Bybit with a loan of 40,000 ETH ($105.9 million) to cope with the withdrawal surge following the ETH theft, with these ETH transferred directly from Bitget to Bybit's cold wallet address.

Bitget CEO Gracy later tweeted that Bybit is a respected competitor and partner, and although the loss is significant, it is just their annual profit. She believes customer funds are 100% safe, and there is no need to panic or rush to withdraw. She further added that the assets lent to Bybit are Bitget's own, and user assets will not be affected.

MEXC: Providing 12,652 stETH

This morning, Yu Jin monitoring reported that MEXC's hot wallet transferred 12,652 stETH (approximately $33.75 million) to Bybit's cold wallet.

Other whale investors: Supporting over nearly $200 million in total

Institutions or whales withdrawing from Binance provided 11,800 ETH (approximately $31.02 million); another institution/whale withdrawing from Binance provided 36,000 ETH (approximately $96.54 million); and address 0x327…45b provided 20,000 ETH (approximately $53.70 million).

In addition to the institutions or whale investors providing real financial support, many CEX peers or institutions have also continuously supported Bybit, including:

OKX: Blacklisting Bybit hacker addresses, can provide security and liquidity support

OKX President Hong Fang stated that the hacker addresses involved in the Bybit theft have been added to OKX's blacklist, and engineers will closely monitor these addresses. If there is any movement of funds, immediate action will be taken.

The OKX team is also in contact with the Bybit team to provide any IT security and liquidity support they can offer at this time.

HashKey: Supporting Bybit and believing the security incident will be properly resolved

HashKey condemned the hacker's illegal actions on their official Twitter and expressed confidence that Bybit's security incident would be properly handled and overcome.

BitMart: Freezing hacker addresses, founder Sheldon stated they will provide support if Bybit needs it

BitMart founder Sheldon posted on X platform that they have frozen the relevant addresses, and if any stolen assets flow into BitMart, they will immediately freeze the related assets to support recovery efforts.

He pointed out, "The cryptocurrency industry is a community of shared destiny, and the most important thing in this industry is credibility. We hope to work together to help Bybit recover losses and reclaim assets. This industry needs everyone to protect it together."

Justin Sun supports Bybit and promises to assist in tracking funds

Huobi HTX Global Advisor and TRON founder Justin Sun stated, "We have been closely monitoring the Bybit incident and will do our utmost to assist our partners in tracking the relevant funds, providing all support within our capabilities."

JuCoin: Providing 1,000 BTC as an industry co-construction fund and technical support for Bybit's security incident

In response to Bybit's recent security incident, JuCoin announced it would provide 1,000 BTC as an industry co-construction fund and offer free advanced security technology services, including threat detection, smart contract auditing, cold wallet management, and multi-signature technology implementation, to ensure the safety of user assets and the stable operation of the platform.

Currently, Bitget is the institution providing the most substantial help to Bybit with real financial support. ( Feel free to contact ChainCatcher to add more supporters to the list. )

In this regard, Conflux co-founder Yuan Jie praised Bitget's vision on Twitter, while he speculated that the underlying reason might be that Bitget and Bybit have common shareholders.

For other exchanges or whales that have shown support but have not taken concrete action, he anticipates they are engaged in tense negotiations over interests. He calls for all parties to reach an agreement quickly, suggesting that Bybit could dilute some shares and provide guarantees to help Bybit and its users through this crisis.

Yuan Jie believes, "Ideally, the key participants in the industry can maximize their accumulated surpluses to form a common moat, resisting risks, including but not limited to hackers, cycles, and external shocks such as technological warfare and politics!"

An interview with Ben is just around the corner; what drives Bybit to handle the crisis in an orderly manner?

Regarding this theft crisis, crypto investor @26x14eth stated that he feels Bybit has good organizational capability and cultural cohesion.

This point was also perceived by ChainCatcher during the interview.

A few days ago, during the Hong Kong Consensus Conference, we briefly communicated with Bybit CEO Ben Zhou.

When we raised the question of how CEXs should transform to build an Onchain ecosystem, Ben Zhou candidly mentioned that they are somewhat confused at the moment. They are not very certain about burning money and the short-term revenue challenges of Web3 wallets, and they are still exploring other on-chain directions. They might form an active team of young people to experiment with playing on chains.

There was nothing particularly official about it.

He previously joked in a public interview that "he should be the only founder of a large exchange who can still speak out and accept interviews."

Looking back now, Bybit's ability to handle this major crisis in an orderly manner may be related to their sincere approach to facing themselves and others.

In December last year, when faced with KOLs questioning Bybit's insider trading and close-knit groups, before public opinion could ferment widely, Ben directly held an AMA to respond one by one. When this theft incident occurred, he also held a live stream overnight, first sharing the reasons for the incident, stating, "There were issues during signing, but I didn't pay attention; the delivery address was not displayed during signing." Additionally, he also updated everyone on the most concerning issues regarding Bybit's withdrawal situation and treasury status.

In fact, regardless of the depth of support from various parties or the outcome, at least the market has not seen such positive energy for a long time. Especially in the past six months, many investors have complained that the industry is in a garbage time, feeling helpless and powerless.

After this Bybit theft incident, we seem to see the return of crypto cohesion from the crisis.