New “Sinbad” Bitcoin Blender Revealed As Formerly Sanctioned Blender

A federally sanctioned “coin mixer” used by criminals to launder money appears to have been relaunched under a different name, according to a blockchain analytics firm.

“Blender is back,” cryptoscientists Elliptic so on Monday, explaining that the app, which was sanctioned last year by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Comptrollership (OFAC) had “highly likely” been relaunched as Sinbad.

Coin mixers are platforms that allow people to anonymously send and receive cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin or Ethereum by combining them to hide the source and destination. Criminals looking to launder money or cover their tracks after stealing crypto usually use coin mixers to cover their tracks.

Sinbad is the coin mixer that the North Korean state-sponsored hacking group Lazarus Group is now using. “Sinbad has laundered close to $100 million in Bitcoin from hacks attributed to Lazarus, to date,” Monday’s post read.

Elliptic added that after Blender was shut down, Sinbad “soon began to be used to launder the proceeds of Lazarus hacks.”

FBI says that Lazarus is the group behind a number of crypto hacks, such as the Horizon hack, where the thieves took $100 million.

Last year, according to OFAC, Blender was used by hackers in North Korea to “support their malicious cyber activities and the laundering of stolen virtual currency.” The app closed in April 2022, but since then Sinbad has been active.

Elliptic claimed today that “tens of millions of dollars from Horizon and other North Korea-linked hacks have been routed through Sinbad to date and continue to do so, demonstrating confidence and trust in the new mixer.”

Coin mixers made headlines last year when OFAC blacklisted US citizens from using Tornado Cash, an Ethereum coin mixer also used by Lazarus.

But politicians and some in the crypto community – such as San Francisco-based digital asset exchange Coinbase – have attacked authorities for banning it, arguing that privacy is a right and that criminals are not the only users of such crypto tools.