Following the high-profile hack that left the Bybit exchange drained of $1.4 billion in Ethereum-related tokens, Bybit CEO Ben Zhou reassured customers that withdrawals are still open but may take several hours to process due to high congestion.
In a Feb. 21 livestream, Zhou said that the exchange currently has around 4,000 pending withdrawal transactions and asked for patience as the issue is resolved. The CEO added:
“We don’t have plans to suspend or cancel withdrawals. At the moment, we are still receiving all the withdrawal requests, and, in fact, 70% of them have been approved and processed. A lot of the network congestion is still there, so we’re processing them as fast as we can.”
The CEO also reassured customers that no other Bybit wallet was compromised in the security incident and added that the exchange is securing a bridge loan to continue operations while the issue is fully resolved.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou addresses concerns in a livestream. Source: Bybit
Many tokens took a hit around the time of the hack and have seen some rebounding, but prices are still lower post-hack, crypto research firm Nansen told Cointelegraph.
Spokespeople for the research firm added that “Ether price action started dropping after 15:00 CET. It took the biggest hit from 16:15 CET onward, dropping 4% in about 45 minutes.”
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Zhou said that the malicious transaction activity was masked as seemingly legitimate and was subsequently signed by the Bybit team.
“We saw the correct UI, we saw the correct address, then signed it. It could be that all of the signer’s PCs were hacked and the UI was changed,” the CEO told viewers in the livestream.
Shunyet Jan, head of derivatives and institutions at Bybit, also joined the livestream and apologized to customers for any discrepancies in asset prices between Bybit and other exchanges in the wake of the hack.
Shunyet Jan addresses Bybit customers following the hack. Source: Bybit
Jan also said that the reason the exchange requires a bridge loan despite having more than enough funds to cover the losses is due to a lack of Ether (ETH) to process withdrawal requests in-kind.
The executive added that the pending transaction queue is getting shorter and reassured clients that retail customers would take priority in the withdrawals, followed by VIP clients and institutions.
Bybit’s security breach follows an uptick in cybersecurity incidents in February 2025, following a reduction in hacking activity in January.
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