On February 24, Theblock reported that non-KYC centralized exchange eXch denied allegations that it was laundering money on behalf of Lazarus Group in a post on the forum. "Holding the opposite opinion is just the view of some people who want the interchangeability and on-chain privacy of decentralized currencies to disappear... These people have long hated decentralized cryptocurrencies." Analyst Vxdb pointed out: "Exch[.] Cx is an exchange that does not require KYC, and its ETH trading volume has soared abnormally-20,000 ETH in the past 24 hours, compared with 800 ETH in normal times." "Their bitcoin reserves are also empty, but their ETH reserves have increased by 900%." The eXch team admitted that "a small portion of the funds from the ByBit hack ended up at our address," but said the transfer was "an isolated case and the only part that our exchange handles." Later, the eXch team promised to donate the proceeds to "various open source initiatives dedicated to privacy and security inside and outside the encrypted space." In another post, the eXch team posted a screenshot showing an email from Bybit employees asking eXch to block certain wallet addresses marked as receiving stolen funds. The team apparently refused the request and accused Bybit of damaging its reputation by labeling deposits from eXch addresses as "high risk."