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Hackers Paid a $119 Million “Panic Tax,” and the Person Who Took the Money Is Probably Unknown to You
Author: Kent Lin
Hackers stole billions of dollars—yet lost approximately $119 million *just* on token swaps.
Who ended up with this massive sum? Most Binance users have likely never even heard of them.
On October 30, a single Ethereum block builder collected more fees in one day than Tether did—so much so that DefiLlama’s system initially flagged the figure as an outlier and automatically blocked it.
You’ve probably already seen the related screenshots circulating across social media. “On-chain, there’s no right or wrong—only speed,” tweeted @bitfish (Shen Yu). That line perfectly captures the essence of this race; no further commentary is needed.
What truly piqued my interest was what came next: How much did those “faster” participants actually capture? And where, exactly—down to which layer of addresses and what types of entities—did these funds ultimately settle? To answer that, I traced the flow step by step. Below is the full breakdown.
01｜The Hacker’s “Panic Tax”
Let’s flip the perspective: What if you were the hacker…
Hackers stole billions of dollars—yet lost approximately $119 million *just* on token swaps.
Who ended up with this massive sum? Most Binance users have likely never even heard of them.
On October 30, a single Ethereum block builder collected more fees in one day than Tether did—so much so that DefiLlama’s system initially flagged the figure as an outlier and automatically blocked it.
You’ve probably already seen the related screenshots circulating across social media. “On-chain, there’s no right or wrong—only speed,” tweeted @bitfish (Shen Yu). That line perfectly captures the essence of this race; no further commentary is needed.
What truly piqued my interest was what came next: How much did those “faster” participants actually capture? And where, exactly—down to which layer of addresses and what types of entities—did these funds ultimately settle? To answer that, I traced the flow step by step. Below is the full breakdown.
01｜The Hacker’s “Panic Tax”
Let’s flip the perspective: What if you were the hacker…
