Germany Nabs $37.4M in Crypto Assets from Defunct Exchange eXch—Regulators Finally Wake Up
German authorities just clawed back $37.4 million from the wreckage of collapsed crypto exchange eXch—proving even regulators can hit CTRL+F when real money vanishes.
The seizure reads like a post-mortem for yet another ’trust us, we’re decentralized’ platform. Berlin’s financial cops froze assets across multiple accounts, delivering a rare win for bureaucracy in the Wild West of digital finance.
While the crypto bros rage about government overreach, the rest of us wonder: how many Lambos could $37.4M buy before the next exchange implodes?
Lazarus links
The now-defunct crypto exchange was used "to launder hundreds of millions from the Bybit hack, Multisig hack, FixedFloat exploit, $243M Genesis Creditor theft," pseudonymous blockchain investigator ZachXBT reported in Investigations, their Telegram channel.
eXch was also involved in "countless phishing drainer services over the past few years with refusal to block addresses and freeze orders," ZachXBT claimed.
In February, eXch faced mounting scrutiny after blockchain analytics firm Elliptic linked it to North Korea’s notorious Lazarus Group and their involvement in the Bybit hack that resulted in over $1.4 billion in stolen funds.
Elliptic and others, including ZachXBT, alleged eXch of processing "tens of millions of dollars" in stolen assets from the hack despite Bybit’s requests to block it.
A purported email response from eXch, archived on X and cited by Elliptic, claims the exchange chose not to acknowledge Bybit’s requests.
5000 ETH stolen in Bybit hack is reportedly being laundered through eXch (a centralized mixer) and converted to Bitcoin via Chainflip. In response, Bybit requested eXch to block the funds and track their movement. However, eXch made this request public and refused to cooperate.… pic.twitter.com/i2DlAsm3Bi
— LANGERIUS (@langeriuseth) February 23, 2025
At the time, eXch acknowledged in a statement to Decrypt that it did receive a request from Bybit to blacklist some addresses, though those were "a minor part of the total amount," eXch CEO Johann Roberts told Decrypt at the time.
Decrypt has reached out to eXch for comment on the German authorities’ actions and will update this article should we receive a response.
