Hacker Returns Nearly All $600 Million Stolen In Largest-Ever Crypto Heist
Nearly all of the $600 million stolen in one of the largest-ever crypto heists has now been returned to crypto platform Poly Network by its hacker.
On Thursday, Poly Network said that all of the stolen funds, bar $33 million worth of the digital coin tether, had been transferred back to the crypto platform. The issuer of the tether froze the assets shortly after the theft, using a built-in failsafe.
On Wednesday, an anonymous person claiming to be the hacker told Poly Network that they were ready to return the funds. The crypto platform requested the hacker to send the money to three digital currency wallets. By Thursday, $342 million of the funds had been returned.
However, although most of the funds have been sent back to Poly Network, the remaining $268 million of assets is currently locked into an account that cannot be accessed without passwords from both Poly Network and the hacker.
In a blog post, Tom Robinson, Chief scientist of blockchain analytics firm Elliptic, said: “It's likely that keys held by both Poly Network and the hacker would be required to move the funds - so the hacker could still make these funds inaccessible if they chose to.”
The hacker explained that they would provide the final key when everyone is ready.