Bybit, the crypto exchange, revealed on Friday that it fell victim to a “sophisticated attack” resulting in the theft of Ethereum (ETH) from an offline wallet.

Ben Zhou, Bybit’s CEO, disclosed in a livestream that hackers managed to take around 401,346 ETH, valued at approximately $1.4 billion at the time of the incident.

According to crypto security firm Elliptic and researcher ZachXBT, the total value of the stolen ETH is around $1.4 billion, marking it as the largest known crypto theft in history. Prior to this, the biggest breaches were against the Ronin Network and Poly Network, leading to losses of $624 million and $611 million, respectively.

Tom Robinson, co-founder and chief scientist at Elliptic, stated that this may also be the largest single theft ever recorded, surpassing even the Central Bank of Iraq’s $1 billion robbery.

Zhou explained that the hacker gained control of one of Bybit’s cold wallets and transferred the funds to a “warm” online wallet. Despite the breach, Zhou reassured that the company remains “solvent” and capable of covering the losses, even if the stolen funds cannot be recovered.

Bybit, headquartered in Dubai, had an estimated $16 billion in total assets as of last week, as reported by CoinMarketCap. In comparison, the total crypto stolen by hackers in 2024 amounted to around $2.2 billion, and around $2 billion in 2023, according to Chainalysis and other sources.