- Chainflip announced that the 1.7.10 upgrade will be ready for testing and deployment within 24–72 hours.
- The cross-chain AMM says the move will prevent the Bybit hackers or other attackers from using the platform to launder stolen funds.
Chainflip, the cross-chain automated market maker (AMM), has revealed an upcoming upgrade intended to stop the Bybit hackers from exploiting its decentralized exchange protocol.
This decision follows the recent $1.4 billion hack of Bybit, in which the North Korean–linked Lazarus Group allegedly drained more than 400,000 ETH from the exchange’s cold wallet.
“After discussions between the team, the community, network liquidity providers, all major interfaces that use Chainflip, and the majority of validator providers, we are moving forward with a plan to allow interfaces to strongly block illicit flows into the Chainflip protocol,” the Chainflip team said in a post on X.
According to Chainflip, there was broad consensus across the community in favor of the upgrade. The community views illicit flows as a threat that “endangers the protocol by exposing LPs to excessive risks.”
The decision to deploy the 1.7.10 upgrade is therefore driven by a shared desire to protect ordinary users’ interests. On February 22, the protocol put its primary exchange interface into maintenance mode to stop the Bybit hackers from swapping stolen ETH for USDC.
Expanding broker-level screening
Chainflip says it has worked with ecosystem partners and other providers to prevent those funds and other illicit flows from accessing the protocol.
With the upgrade, the protocol will expand a broker-level screening feature that can reject Bitcoin (BTC) deposits deemed high risk for Ethereum (ETH) and all ERC-20 tokens.
“Going forward, Chainflip will not be usable by anyone whose wallet can be linked to any major incident, hack, fraud, or scam. This will allow Chainflip to offer a far more reliable and secure environment for LPs to commit more capital at lower risk, thereby improving service for DeFi users everywhere,” the platform added.
Chainflip’s developers have already written most of the necessary code, and testing and deployment could roll out within 24 to 72 hours.