The price of ether (ETH) has experienced a surge of over 2.3% in the past 24 hours, outpacing the broader CoinDesk 20 Index, which rose by 0.76%. Meanwhile, Bitcoin saw a slight decline of approximately 0.3%.

The rise follows reports of Bybit, a cryptocurrency exchange that was previously hacked for $1.5 billion worth of ether and staked ether by the North Korean hacking group Lazarus, reallocating 100 million USDT into new wallets. Half of this amount has already been transferred to facilitate the purchase of 36,900 ETH through over-the-counter transactions.

These funds, worth around $101 million, have been linked back to addresses associated with Bybit, as reported by crypto journalist Colin Wu, referencing data from Arkham Intelligence.

In an interactive session, Bybit’s CEO, Ben Zhou, reassured that the company possesses assets exceeding $1.5 billion, and highlighted that there is a cold wallet holding nearly $3 billion in USDT.

Furthermore, the hacker associated with this breach is now holding around 489,000 ETH, approximating a value of $1.34 billion, which accounts for about 0.4% of ether’s total supply, making them the 14th-largest holder of this cryptocurrency.

Translation: The rise comes amid reports that Bybit has allocated 100 million USDT to a new wallet to buy the cryptocurrency.