The statement came shortly after Lookonchain reported Bybit had bought $742 million worth of Ether between Feb. 22 and 23.

Bybit CEO Ben Zhou says his cryptocurrency exchange has fully replaced the $1.4 billion worth of Ether that was hacked on Feb. 21.

A new audited proof-of-reserve report will be published very soon to show Bybit’s client assets are back at a 1:1 ratio through a Merkle tree, Zhou said in a Feb. 24 X post.

It comes as blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain estimated that Bybit received 446,870 Ether, worth around $1.23 billion from loans, whale deposits and purchases — making up nearly 88% of the $1.4 billion stolen from North Korean stated-back hacker organization Lazarus Group on Feb. 21.

Of that, Lookonchain found that Bybit-linked wallet address “0x2E45...1b77” had bought 157,660 Ether ETH  $2,700, worth $437.8 million from crypto investment firms Galaxy Digital, FalconX and Wintermute via over-the-counter purchases.

Another $304 million of Ether purchased using wallet address “0xd7CF...A995” through centralized and decentralized exchanges is also “likely” tied to Bybit, Lookonchain said, citing data from Arkham Intelligence.

Arkham data shows that address “0xd7CF...A995” interacted with Binance and MEXC hot wallets.

Ether transfers from Galaxy Digital, FalconX and Wintermute to Bybit-linked “0x2E45...1b77” wallet address.

Several transfers were sent to those wallet addresses to make up those respective amounts. The first purchase from “0x2E45...1b77” occurred on Feb. 22 at 4:44 pm UTC.

The $1.4 billion hack was the largest in crypto history and represented more than 60% of all crypto funds that were stolen in 2024.
Bybit’s customer withdrawals also topped $5.3 billion on Feb. 22. Proof-of-reserve auditor Hacken says the crypto platform’s reserves still exceed its liabilities, and user funds remain fully backed.

Bybit’s total assets currently sit at $10.9 billion, DefiLlama data shows.

Ether fell over 7% in seven hours following the hack, dropping from $2,831 to $2,629, but has recovered to $2,765 since then, CoinGecko data shows.