Bybit Recovers Nearly 50% of Ether Reserves After $1.5B Hack; Crypto Industry Rallies with $400M in Aid

Following the $1.5 billion Ether hack on February 21, Bybit has recovered nearly 50% of its Ether reserves within two days. CryptoQuant data indicates Bybit held over 201,600 Ether tokens as of 8:52 am UTC on February 23, a significant increase from the 61,000 ETH remaining after the exploit. The exchange replenished its reserves through spot buying, acquiring 106,498 Ether worth $295 million via OTC trades, according to Lookonchain. Major crypto entities, including Binance, Bitget, and HTX Group's co-founder Du Jun, provided emergency transfers totaling $400 million. Bybit processed over 350,000 withdrawal requests within 10 hours of the hack, completing 99.9% of them by 1:45 am UTC on February 22, according to CEO Ben Zhou. Hacken, Bybit's PoR auditor, confirmed that reserves still exceed liabilities despite a $5.3 billion drop in total assets.