Wallets linked to Bitget hack move about $3.9 million in Zcash into private pool

Wallets linked to Bitget's $387.5 million hack moved about $3.9 million in Zcash into the cryptocurrency's private payment system on Wednesday. A review of transaction records found that 2,746 ZEC entered Ironwood, Zcash's newest shielded pool, in three transfers between 08:15 and 08:46 UTC. Blockchain investigator ZachXBT first flagged the movements earlier Wednesday. ZachXBT said the money passed through two intermediary addresses funded by a wallet that Bitget identified as belonging to the attacker. That wallet received nearly 18,917 ZEC during the September 24 breach, ZachXBT said. The three deposits represent about 15% of the stolen ZEC. Zcash offers both public and private payments. Investigators can see how much enters a shielded pool, but transfers inside it hide the sender, recipient and amount. The privacy feature makes it harder to connect a later withdrawal to the stolen coins. However, timing and amounts can still provide clues when money returns to public addresses. Other proceeds have moved across blockchains through swap services. An earlier review traced about $6.3 million in ether-to-bitcoin swaps through THORChain from one attacker-linked wallet. Those swaps left a public record of the incoming ether and outgoing bitcoin.