OKX has quickly suspended its Web3 decentralized trade (DEX) aggregator following discussions with European regulators.
The trade introduced this determination on March 17, stating that the transfer is a part of efforts to boost safety measures and stop misuse of its platform.
Bybit hack connection
The suspension comes as European authorities examine allegations that hackers linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group used OKX Web3 to launder funds stolen within the current Bybit hack.
A current Bloomberg report recommended regulators from all 27 European Union nations mentioned this difficulty throughout a European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) assembly on March 6.
Bybit CEO Ben Zhou confirmed that the hackers leveraged OKX Web3 to launder roughly $100 million of the stolen $1.5 billion.
In response, EU regulators are actually assessing whether or not the platform falls below the jurisdiction of the Markets in Crypto-Property (MiCA) regulatory framework and exploring potential penalties for OKX.
OKX’s response
OKX maintains that its involvement within the laundering course of was because of incorrect labeling by blockchain explorers and different decentralized exchanges.
The trade acknowledged that it’s actively working with these explorers to make sure correct transaction reporting and stop misidentification of its aggregator as the purpose of commerce.
It defined:
“We all know that transparency is essential, so we’re additionally working intently with blockchain explorers to appropriate incomplete labeling. Our objective is to make sure that explorers correctly spotlight the precise DEX processing trades moderately than mistakenly figuring out our aggregator as the purpose of commerce.”
The platform additionally reiterated that its aggregator doesn’t custody person belongings however merely offers entry to liquidity throughout a number of decentralized protocols.
To additional strengthen safety, the platform has launched a system designed to detect hacker addresses in actual time and block them from accessing its centralized trade.
OKX CEO Star Xu mentioned on X:
“We already rolled out quite a lot of controls for OKX Web3 to combat with the misuse together with prohibited markets’ ip blocking and real-time black deal with detection and blocking system.”
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