Executive analysis
What happens at the moment of commitment
On February 21, 2025, a compromised transaction entered Bybit's trusted, multisig-approved workflow and executed. $1.4 billion in Ethereum became irreversible within minutes.
Without an authority check
✓Identity verified
✓Approval valid
✓Access granted
✓Approval valid
✓Access granted
▼
The transaction can proceed
No authority question is asked at the point of commitment
▼
$1.4B
committed · irreversible
With Authority Control
✓Identity verified
✓Approval valid
✓Access granted
✓Approval valid
✓Access granted
▼
The authority question is evaluated
Is the proposed result within the authority the organization configured?
▼
Permit · Defer · Block
determined before the commitment binds
commitment boundary
The transaction passed through the approval workflow. Whether the resulting transfer was authorized remained a separate question.
The case raises an authority question at the point of transfer. It does not establish that Authority Control would have prevented the incident. A counterfactual would require documented authority, an integrated execution path, and validated enforcement.