[Satire] Cyber Sleuth ZachXBT Revealed to Be Lazarus Group Mastermind Hacker

• ZachXBT may be the mastermind behind Lazarus Group
• His return to Telegram coincided with crypto’s biggest ever hack
• Zach has now been connected to every major onchain hack in history

The crypto world has been stunned by the revelation that revered cyber sleuth ZachXBT may be the mastermind behind Lazarus Group, the collective that hacked Bybit for $1.5B in February. The industry remains in turmoil after learning that crypto’s most-loved whitehat could have been working for North Korea all along.

Pseudonymous blockchain investigator ZachXBT is widely recognized for his efforts to expose scams and hacks. Zach uses his expertise in onchain analysis to track wallet movements, trace illicit transactions, and uncover bad actors. He’s the hero web3 needs, breaking down complex scams such as rug pulls and P&Ds backed by blockchain data and real-world evidence including court documents and social media activity.

On February 21, ZachXBT returned from a near-three-week hiatus from social media to post: “Have turned off my DMs for the next few weeks as people do not respect my time and lack basic financial literacy or common sense. This means there’s currently no way to contact me so do not get scammed.”

Six hours later, he posted: “Currently monitoring suspicious outflows from Bybit of $1.46B+ will update as information becomes available.” Initially, industry figures praised ZachXBT for being first to identify the exploit and alert exchanges to take action to mitigate the flow of stolen funds. But it didn’t take long before commenters were noting Zach’s weeks-long hiatus from social media concluding with the biggest hack in crypto history.

Who Watches the Onchain Watchers?

As rumors began circulating that ZachXBT could be the Lazarus Group mastermind, an onchain analytics firm published a damning dossier connecting the crypto sleuth to every major onchain hack in history including the $600M Ronin bridge exploit.

When pressed as to why they hadn’t spotted the connections between the industry’s supposed Sherlock and its Moriarty adversary sooner, analytics firm ChainCis said: “Up until now we just repeated Zach’s research and passed it off as our own.” Only when asked to investigate ZachXBT’s own onchain activity did ChainCis discover that he may have been the criminal genius pulling Lazarus Group’s strings all along.

“There’s actually evidence that his crimes go back further than DeFi,” tweeted one X user as the ZachXBT pile-one intensified.

“How much further?” replied an egg account, to which the OP enigmatically replied: “You ever hear of Jack the Ripper?”

“We assumed that Zach was a good guy because he said he was a good guy,” reflected ChainCis CEO David Fisher. “There’s an old Bitcoin saying that goes ‘Don’t trust, verify’ but we trusted Zach when we should have verified. And we can now verify that the B in ZachXBT stands for Best Korea.”