Gravity Bridge hacker launders 2,000+ ETH via Tornado Cash
CertiK reports the Gravity Bridge exploit hacker has sent an additional 1,180 ETH (≈$2.06M) to Tornado Cash over the past 24 hours. The latest transfers used two externally owned accounts and bring total stolen funds routed through the mixer to 2,020 ETH.
The original Gravity Bridge hack (mid-2024) drained over 2,600 ETH (≈$5.4M at the time). CertiK says most of those funds were moved through Tornado Cash to obscure on-chain trails, while the remainder was distributed across multiple centralized exchanges (CEXs).
Tornado Cash is a decentralized mixing service that breaks the direct link between sender and receiver, making investigations harder. Despite U.S. Treasury sanctions on Tornado Cash in 2022, the protocol appears to remain usable for laundering.
CertiK notes that this pattern—moving funds through mixers, then potentially to CEXs—mirrors common laundering tactics. For traders, the key takeaway is ongoing sell-pressure risk if any of the remaining ETH resurfaces on exchanges, but no immediate protocol-wide impact is indicated.
For market participants, the case reinforces the need to monitor bridge-related security and wallet flows closely. Recovery is typically difficult once funds enter a mixer, although blockchain forensics firms continue to track and alert authorities if funds reappear.
Neutral
The news is mainly an on-chain laundering update, not a new exploit or a breach of a currently-active protocol. That usually limits direct contagion to market structure, so the base case is neutral.
However, the flow of Gravity Bridge hacker ETH into Tornado Cash and the mention that remaining funds are spread across multiple CEXs matters for short-term price dynamics. Similar past cases—bridge hacks followed by gradual exchange deposits—often create temporary sell-pressure and volatility when funds move from mixers to liquid venues. Traders may therefore watch for ETH on centralized order books and related wallet-to-exchange transfers.
In the long run, this reinforces the persistent security/regulatory risk around cross-chain infrastructure and may support a risk-off premium for poorly audited bridges. Still, without evidence of fresh large-scale outflows hitting exchanges immediately, it’s less likely to drive sustained directional moves. Net impact: neutral with a watchlist bias toward ETH flow data.