A major security breach has shocked the cryptocurrency community after a wallet linked to early crypto participant and NFT collector known as Sillytuna was drained of approximately $24 million. The incident, first flagged by blockchain security firm PeckShield, involved the theft of 23,596,293 aEthUSDC in what analysts initially believed was a sophisticated address poisoning attack.
The victim, however, has revealed that the theft process involved severe real-world threats. In a public statement, Sillytuna described an ordeal involving "violence, weapons, kidnapp and rape threats." He confirmed that law enforcement is involved in the investigation and, shaken by the event, declared his intention to leave the crypto industry entirely.
On-chain analysis shows the stolen aEthUSDC was transferred in a single transaction to an attacker-controlled wallet (0x6fef…a246032). The attacker quickly converted roughly $20.34 million of the assets into DAI stablecoin, distributing the funds across two staging wallets. A smaller portion of the funds was bridged to the Arbitrum layer-2 network, with one transaction moving 49.85 ETH which resulted in over 106,000 USDC appearing on Arbitrum. Security researchers believe the attacker may be moving funds in smaller batches to avoid detection.
Further tracking indicates the stolen funds were reportedly used to purchase Monero (XMR), a privacy-focused cryptocurrency, in an attempt to obscure the money trail. In the aftermath, Sillytuna has publicly offered a 10% bounty for the recovery of the stolen assets, appealing to investigators or even the parties involved.
