Attackers behind KelpDAO breach help lift Bitcoin

Hackers behind the KelpDAO exploit routed stolen funds through ThorChain and swapped them into Bitcoin, triggering roughly $211 million of spot BTC buying that helped lift BTC from about $75,000 to test the $78,000 level. On-chain trackers show 442 BTC moved and split across roughly 400 addresses, coinciding with a surge in ThorChain volume and its highest daily fees of the year. The laundering activity also mixed proceeds with prior breaches (BTCTurk, Bybit), raising contagion concerns: Ethereum lost ~17.73% of TVL, Arbitrum and Solana saw notable outflows, and Aave incurred an estimated $177M in bad debt. The episode highlights short-term bullish pressure on BTC prices from illicit flows while increasing systemic DeFi risk from fast, hard-to-freeze on-chain swaps and mixing services.