Key Takeaways
- Looking back at the first half of 2025, ByBit CEO Ben Zhou discussed February’s $1.5 billion hack.
- He said ByBit’s third-party reserve audits helped mitigate damage from the attack.
- Hacken confirmed that Bybit maintained a reserve ratio of over 100% following the incident.
During an annual keynote address, ByBit CEO Ben Zhou addressed the exchange’s biggest challenge in the past year—February’s $1.5 billion hack.
In the past, more minor losses have cripled other exchanges. However, Zhou argued that verifying reserves with third-party auditors helped the trade and the wider industry survive.
How ByBit Avoided a Black Swan
For anyone familiar with the turbulent history of crypto markets, North Korea’s Lazarus’s February hack had the potential to be a black swan event of FTX proportions.
But ultimately, not only did ByBit remain afloat and ensure customers didn’t suffer any losses, but the broader crypto industry managed to contain the damage, avoiding the contagion seen during previous crises.
On Aug. 6, Zhou said the incident proved that the crypto sector had learned from the FTX crash.
“Ever since the fall of FTX, we’ve implemented monthly proof-of-reserve reporting, and during this hack, our third-party auditors were able to verify that our assets remained fully solvent,” he said. “That made a huge difference in how we got through it.”
Crucially, Hacken confirmed that Bybit maintained a reserve ratio exceeding 100% in the days following the hack.
Meanwhile, other exchanges stepped in with crypto loans to ensure ByBit had sufficient short-term liquidity to keep up with the massive surge in withdrawal requests that followed the hack.
Which Exchanges Use Third-Party Audits?
While Zhou credited Hacken’s audits with helping maintain confidence in ByBit’s ability to guarantee deposits, such arrangements are far from widespread.
At present, Bybit and Gate.io are the only major exchanges with publicly confirmed, named third-party auditors (Hacken and Armanino, respectively).
The world’s most popular exchange, Binance, has often been criticized for relying on on-chain attestations to demonstrate its proof-of-reserves. This avoids the rigorous scrutiny of a third-party accounting audit, which takes a wider view of assets and liabilities.
Other major exchanges, such as Coinbase and Kraken, claim they are subject to regular independent audits, but they don’t disclose which firms undertake them.
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James Morales is CCN’s blockchain and crypto policy reporter. He has been working in the news media since 2020, writing about topics such as payments, banking and financial technology. These days, he likes to explore the latest blockchain innovations and the evolving landscape of global crypto regulation.
With an educational background in social anthropology and media studies, James uses his platform as a journalist to explore how new technologies work, why they matter and how they might shape our future.
