In late February, hackers breached the Dubai-based Bybit, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, and stole about $1.5 billion of Ethereum. It was the largest hack in crypto’s Bitcoin. Specifically, the firm builds open-source software that companies like Bybit use to create online wallets to store their crypto. The wallets are akin to bank vaults that need multiple keys to be unlocked.
Bybit used Safe to safeguard at least $1.5 billion of Ethereum, the world’s second largest cryptocurrency by market capitalization. Any time an employee from Bybit wanted to move the exchange’s Ethereum to another location, he or she signed into Safe’s website. Because Safe’s software is open-source, the company and Bybit had no formal business relationship, Stefan George, one of the original developers behind Safe’s technology, told Fortune.
