Overview
- On Oct. 5, 2026 the pseudonymous investigator ZachXBT publicly said he funded 349,700 USDC on March 6, 2025 to pose as a client and win trust inside a Chinese-run laundering network.
- He says he accepted roughly a 5% loss per order while matching chat screenshots to on-chain transfers across Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and Tron to map laundering paths.
- From those contacts he reported identifying a wallet cluster he ties to the Feb. 2025 Bybit exploit worth more than $12 million and that Tether later froze 442,000 USDT linked to the cluster.
- The Feb. 2025 Bybit breach was attributed by the FBI to DPRK-linked actors tracked as TraderTraitor, and ZachXBT says his findings were shared with private investigators and law enforcement.
- The case highlights how stablecoin issuers can block tainted funds and how cross-chain swaps and over-the-counter brokers serve as choke points that can strand or reroute stolen crypto.