The hacker behind the $387.5 million heist on Bitget is not going down without a fight. After seeing swap attempts rejected on Near Intents, the attacker shifted strategy — and target.
The new destination: Zcash and its privacy pool Ironwood, one of the hardest-to-trace on-chain laundering tools available. This escalation is a stark illustration of the growing sophistication of attackers operating within the crypto ecosystem.
Here is a breakdown of a methodical escape that exposes the limits of decentralized filtering mechanisms — and the resilience of privacy protocols.
Near Intents Shuts the Door: $50M in Swaps Blocked
Shortly after the hack, the attacker attempted to convert a portion of the stolen funds through Near Intents, a decentralized swap protocol built on the Near blockchain. The targeted amount reached approximately $50 million in transactions — an attempt to cover tracks by fragmenting and converting the stolen funds.
But Near Intents rejected every single operation. The protocol has filtering mechanisms capable of identifying suspicious addresses and abnormal fund flows, and refused to process the swaps. This is a rare but significant demonstration: even within a decentralized environment, certain protocols can act as active safeguards against illicit fund movements.
That block forced the hacker to pivot quickly. Rather than persisting or hunting for another exposed DEX, the attacker opted for a radically more opaque solution.
Zcash Ironwood: The Ultimate Refuge for Covering Tracks
The attacker began depositing funds into Ironwood, the privacy pool of Zcash. According to available on-chain data, approximately $3.8 million in ZEC has already been routed into this pool. Ironwood uses zk-SNARK proofs to conceal the sender, recipient, and transaction amount — making on-chain tracing virtually impossible once funds are inside.
Zcash is historically one of the most robust privacy protocols on the market. Unlike mixers such as Tornado Cash — sanctioned by the OFAC in 2022 — Zcash operates as a fully independent blockchain network, which significantly complicates any direct regulatory action against its infrastructure.
The use of Ironwood signals that the attacker has an advanced command of the crypto ecosystem’s toolset. $3.8 million represents only a fraction of the total $387.5M haul, which strongly suggests that further movements are either already underway or imminent — potentially through other vectors not yet identified.
A Hack That Exposes the Blind Spots of Decentralized Security
The Bitget incident goes well beyond a typical crypto news story. It lays bare a structural tension at the heart of DeFi: decentralization protects legitimate users, but also provides escape routes for malicious actors. The rejection by Near Intents proves that some protocols can respond — but this capability remains the exception, not the rule.
Centralized exchanges like Bitget theoretically operate with stricter KYC/AML controls, yet remain vulnerable to sophisticated attacks targeting their smart contracts or internal infrastructure. The exact attack vector behind the $387.5M hack has not yet been publicly disclosed, leaving significant uncertainty around the true scope of the exploited vulnerability.
For on-chain analysts and security teams, tracking these funds is becoming an exercise in extreme precision: every movement into a privacy pool like Ironwood narrows the window for potential recovery. The coming weeks will be decisive in determining whether other protocols can identify and block the remaining flows before they vanish permanently into the opacity of Zcash.
