Recent data from the Dune Analytics reveals that Garden Finance has experienced a remarkable growth in its platform which is witnessed by charts of BTC swaps, user interactions, and total fees collected during Q2 of 2025 compared to Q1.
Notably, as the platform displayed the Garden Finance has facilitated a total BTC volume of 24,984 BTC, translating to over $1.5 billion across 40,571 atomic swaps. Also, it has accumulated 40.11 BTC in fees, with the largest single swap on its platform reaching 10 BTC.
The data has positioned them as “the fastest Bitcoin bridge,” Garden Finance’s impressive growth in the first half of 2025 is clearly illustrated in the Dune Analytics charts.
However, this surge has not gone unnoticed. ZachXBT has raised suspicions, even accusing Garden Finance of enabling the laundering of funds associated with crypto thefts, including the notorious $1.4 billion Bybit hack.
Kee reading to understand the whole story.
The recent allegations against Garden Finance has emerged in a surprising twist which is followed by a post by Jaz Gulati, the platform’s founder. In the prior post he highlighted its success by sharing an image of the fees collected in the first week of June.
Interestingly, a known name in the crypto sector, ZachXBT, has come to light. As he accused the protocol of generating over 80% of its recent fees through the laundering of funds, allegedly with the assistance of Chinese launderers connected to the Lazarus Group.
This claim by the onchain investigator, made on X earlier today at the end of the third week of June, has sparked significant interest within the crypto community. As this is raising severe and urgent questions about the trustworthiness of decentralized platforms.
Following the ZachXBT’s allegations, Jaz Gulati, the founder of Garden Finance, responded by referencing a previous post where he stated that they had received 30 BTC well before the Bybit hack occurred. He attached a screenshot of this post from Q4 2024 to support his claim.
Despite Gulati’s defense, ZachXBT doubled down, pointing to other hacks related to the DPRK, including the WazirX incident, which took place prior to the Bybit hack.
He further questioned the legitimacy of Garden Finance, labeling it a “fake decentralized bridge.” In response, Gulati dismissed this characterization as misinformation, calling the “fake decentralized” label unfounded.
In a subsequent comment, ZachXBT alleged that a single actor has been consistently topping up cbBTC’s liquidity from Coinbase for Chinese launderers while they moved the stolen funds from Bybit.
However, Gulati has yet to respond to this specific accusation, despite his earlier quick replies.
After three hours of silence from Gulati, another user, James Scaur, joined the discussion, seemingly in support of Gulati.
Scaur suggested that a Pareto distribution might apply, where a small number of liquidity providers (LPs) contribute the majority of liquidity. He noted that this doesn’t necessarily imply centralization; it could simply mean that only one LP was able to meet the demand at that time.
On the topic of blocking swaps from hacked sources, Scaur acknowledged that it is a complex issue that remains difficult to resolve.
More recently, ZachXBT delivered a blow to James Scaur’s support for the platform, as he once again criticized Garden Finance for its lack of decentralization, noting that since the cap for large swaps was raised to 10 cbBTC, only one entity has been fulfilling orders for weeks.
He highlighted that outside of Bybit funds, the platform has minimal activity, making it easy to spot illicit transactions in the mempool. With Bybit-related transactions flooding in since April 2025, he pointed out that the team had been warned about this issue.
He suggested that if they cannot block these transactions, they should return the generated fees and disable larger swaps, rather than boasting about their fees while knowing their origins.
Additionally, he mentioned that the 30 BTC in fees is largely due to an airdrop farming campaign from early 2024.
The heated exchange of replies on X has since escalated into a public spat, but the allegation seems strong coming from ZachXBT’s findings. If the exchange continues then it could even prompt legal scrutiny for Garden finance.
Bybit suffered a major hack on February 21, 2025, resulting in approximately $1.5 billion in Ethereum tokens being stolen. The attack, attributed to North Korea’s Lazarus Group, exploited vulnerabilities in its multi-signature wallet’s user interface.
Garden Finance is a “Bitcoin bridge” platform that claims to enable fast, zero-custody, cross-chain Bitcoin swaps, utilizing atomic swaps and an intents-based architecture. It has facilitated over $1.5 billion in BTC volume.
Crypto bridges can be used to move stolen funds across blockchains, making them harder to trace. Accusations against Garden Finance suggest specific actors are exploiting this for laundering hacked funds.
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