Blockchain investigators identified a newly created wallet building approximately $40 million in leveraged Bitcoin and Ethereum positions on Hyperliquid and another wallet converting $3.73 million in ETH into Zcash (ZEC). The first address was labelled by Onchain Lens as belonging to the exploiter behind Drift Protocol’s $295 million April attack, although that attribution remains unproven. The second transaction also attracted attention because Lookonchain suggested it could involve the same hacker, without establishing common ownership between the wallets. This roundup examines the transactions, the potential connection to the Drift exploit and what the available on-chain evidence actually establishes.
A newly created wallet builds $40 million in BTC and ETH positions
A newly created Ethereum address, 0x45d78AEC95C24B99CC8641a5B25c910D8b7c00ca, received 3,100 ETH, worth approximately $6.92 million, through 31 separate withdrawals of 100 ETH each from Tornado Cash between November 7 at 14:50 and 16:05 UTC.
The wallet subsequently converted the ETH into approximately $6.92 million in USDC through CoW Swap, bridged the stablecoins to Hyperliquid and began establishing opposing perpetual futures positions.
Lookonchain first flagged the activity at approximately 01:40 UTC on November 8. Its initial report identified a 20x leveraged long position of 169.47 BTC, valued at approximately $12.84 million, alongside a 20x short position of 5,740 ETH, worth approximately $12.83 million.
The positions continued expanding through time-weighted average price (TWAP) orders, which execute trades in smaller portions over a specified period rather than placing the entire order at once. By approximately 06:07 UTC, the wallet had accumulated 263.81 BTC in long exposure and 8,945.744 ETH in short exposure, with each position worth approximately $20 million.
Johan Shamshad is Editor-in-Chief at Dave Finances, covering financial markets, digital assets, trading platforms, brokers, fintech, payments and regulation. Since 2023, he has also worked as an editor at Gulf News, the UAE English-language newspaper published by Al Nisr Publishing LLC. His work focuses on market-moving developments, company disclosures, regulatory changes and trading infrastructure, with an emphasis on primary-source verification and practical context for traders and investors.