Garden Finance Probed for $27M Lazarus Group Laundering Amid DeFi Risks

Blockchain analyst ZachXBT alleges that Ethereum-based DeFi platform Garden Finance helped launder over $27 million of North Korea’s Lazarus Group proceeds, with more than 80% of its recent fees—around 30 BTC—originating from Chinese launderers. The accusations include a single actor repeatedly topping up cbBTC liquidity on Coinbase, calling Garden’s decentralization claims into question. Co-founder Jaz Gulati countered that the fees were collected before the Bybit hack and dismissed misinformation about being a “fake decentralized” bridge. To date, Garden reports over 24,984 BTC in cross-chain volume and 40.11 BTC in cumulative fees across 40,571 atomic swaps. This case spotlights DeFi vulnerabilities—pseudonymous transactions, lack of on-chain monitoring—and has prompted calls for stronger transparency, KYC integration, enhanced smart-contract audits, real-time blockchain surveillance, and potential tighter regulations to safeguard market integrity.