- Ether fell as much as 7% Monday as the hacker who looted FTX began dumping tokens.
- Over the last week, the hacker gradually converted the stolen FTX funds to ether, CoinDesk reported.
The price of ether dropped as much as 7% Monday as the purported FTX hacker dumped millions of dollars worth of pilfered ethereum and swapped it for bitcoin.
A week ago, the hacker had accumulated roughly $288 million of ether after raiding Sam Bankman-Fried's ailing crypto exchange, making the looter the 35th-largest ether holder in the world, according to Bloomberg.
Blockchain analytics company Elliptic estimated that, in total, FTX had about $477 million swiped amid its stunning collapse.
However, the hacker's ethereum holdings dropped 26% over the weekend, according to data from Etherscan cited by Decrypt.
Elliptic's cofounder, Tom Robinson, told CNBC Monday that hackers were converting the ether into bitcoin using a blockchain bridge product called RenBTC.
Per the report, roughly $74 million has been moved to bitcoin from RenBTC so far.
Notably, Alameda Research, Bankman-Fried's crypto trading firm and a sister company to FTX, acquired RenBridge last year, which owns the RenBTC tool.
On Sunday, ether traded as low as $1,118.64. Bitcoin shed roughly 2% Monday to hover at $16,029.
Year-to-date, the world's second largest crypto by market cap has shed roughly 75% of its value. Losses for the token, as well as others like bitcoin and solana, have accelerated in recent weeks as fears of an FTX contagion spread.
Blockchain analytics firm, Chainalysis, said in a tweet Sunday that it had also confirmed hackers were moving the stolen funds.
—Chainalysis (@chainalysis) November 20, 2022
Despite the turmoil sparked by FTX's implosion, billionaire Bill Ackman, for his part, said crypto isn't going anywhere.
"I think crypto is here to stay and with proper oversight and regulation, it has the potential to greatly benefit society and grow the global economy," Ackman said on Twitter.