Remember those wily hackers that siphoned $90 million from Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange yesterday? Today, they taunted Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps and then burned the entire pile of crypto. More than $90 million vaporized! The stunning $90 million destruction marks a brazen escalation in the covert cyber war that has simmered between Israel and Iran for more than a decade.
You did what!!!
A pro-Israel hacking group known as Predatory Sparrow (Gonjeshke Darande) executed a high-profile cyberattack on June 18, 2025, targeting Nobitex, Iran’s largest cryptocurrency exchange. The hackers siphoned more than $90 million worth of digital assets—including Bitcoin, Ether, Dogecoin, Ripple, Solana, Tron, Ton, and possibly others—from the exchange’s wallets. The hackers gained access to Nobitex’s hot wallets and transferred the stolen cryptocurrencies to so-called vanity blockchain wallets. These wallet addresses were crafted to include anti-government slogans and taunts directed at Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Rather than attempting to profit from the theft, the attackers sent the funds to burner addresses—wallets with no private-key access—effectively making the assets irretrievable and “burning” them. This action permanently removed the funds from circulation.
The attack was explicitly political, not financially motivated. Predatory Sparrow claimed responsibility, framing the operation as retaliation against the Iranian regime and its use of crypto to evade sanctions and fund illicit activities. The group also threatened to publish Nobitex’s proprietary source code, further destabilizing the platform.
This incident marks one of the most significant politically motivated crypto burns in history, vaporizing over $90 million in digital assets in a single stroke. The hack came just a day after Predatory Sparrow claimed to have crippled Iran’s state-owned Bank Sepah, amid escalating cyber and kinetic hostilities between Israel and Iran.
Broader Context
Nobitex is a central pillar of Iran’s digital asset ecosystem, facilitating the majority of on-chain exchange activity for Iranian users, especially under heavy international sanctions. In response to the breach, Iran’s central bank imposed strict curfews on domestic crypto exchanges, restricting their operating hours to mitigate further attacks and capital flight.
The destruction of funds was widely interpreted as a symbolic blow against the Iranian regime, highlighting the use of cyber means as a tool of geopolitical conflict in the digital age.
