Nomad bridge hackers made around $4 million by buying the Ethereum dip

As the bitcoin (BTC) and the crypto market crashed hard on Monday, even hackers used the opportunity to leverage stolen funds to buy the dip and increase their holdings.

On Monday, blockchain analysts at Lookonchain and PeckShield noticed that the Nomad bridge hackers swapped around $40 million worth of dai (DAI) stablecoin for approximately 17,750 ETH, making the average price of the transaction around $2,254 per ETH. At the time of writing, ETH changes hands at around $2,500, increasing the value of their investment by around 10%, or approximately $4 million.

However, at least 2,400 ETH (around $6 million) of the funds were sent to the so-called crypto mixer Tornado Cash, which helps to hide transaction history. It's unknown whether any of these funds have been cashed out or if the hacker is still holding them, hoping the value will increase even further.

Opinions regarding the market recovery after one of the strongest drawdowns vary. Some analysts see possibilities for another drop, while others point to previous similar crashes that were followed by a relatively quick recovery. The Monday crash is said to have been exaggerated by Japan's central bank's unexpected decision to raise interest rates last week.

This caused a cascading liquidation of failed investments in traditional markets, which affected the crypto asset market – the only one open on weekends.

The Nomad hackers-turned-traders drained around $190 million worth of crypto assets from the bridge, which helps to communicate between different blockchains, in August 2022.

As of the latest available information from November 2022, Nomad managed to recover around $39 million. As reported by Cybernews.com, there was an up to 10% bounty for the return of funds.