Elliptic, a blockchain analytics firm, estimates that the attacker still controls about $3.33B in assets that no centralised token issuer can freeze, leaving the largest part of the aftermath beyond the reach of freeze orders.

The freeze actions taken so far have been large in their own right. Tether froze about $1.567B in USDT, Circle froze about $823M in USDC, and the total frozen stands at about $2.84B on Elliptic's estimate, while Binance says about $3B was frozen.

Before those freezes took effect, the hacker converted about $786M in stablecoins into ETH and TRX, shifting value into assets that sit outside an issuer freeze mechanism.

Activity on Aave shows how the stolen funds were put to use. Per LlamaRisk, about $59.9M in stolen USDT was deposited as collateral, and about $43.8M worth of ETH was borrowed against it.

The overall hack is estimated at about $6.3B, so even the full frozen total covers only part of what was taken.

The distinction at the heart of the case is structural. USDT and USDC can be frozen by their issuers, whereas ETH and Bitcoin have no central issuer with that same power.

The freezes were significant, but they did not solve the problem. The unfrozen billions are the bigger story, and a lesson about the limits of centralised control in a decentralised ecosystem.