Last week, hackers thought to be from North Korea's infamous Lazarus Group stole $1.46bn (£1.1bn) of cryptocurrency from ByBit, a crypto trading platform. The criminals are trying to rapidly cash out the hoard through a complex online money laundering process.

Cryptocurrency exchange Bybit said last week hackers had stolen digital tokens worth around $1.5 billion, in what researchers called the biggest crypto heist of all time.

Less than 72 hours later, Zhou said Bybit had restored the exchange’s balance and kept customer withdrawals open, although he did not account for the stolen crypto. The scale of the Bybit theft surpasses the previous record of a $615 million heist of Ethereum and U.