Optimism hacker confirms they are whitehat, returns most of stolen funds

admin June 12, 2022

0 2 minutes read

👋 Want to work with us? CryptoSlate has a small number of positions!

Optimistic hackers confirmed that they were White Hats and asked the project developers to share the return address of the remaining tokens they own.

Hackers have stolen 20 million OP tokens from Optimism by exploiting a failed transaction involving liquidity provider Wintermute.

Wintermute CEO Evgeny Gaevoy has asked hackers to return the stolen funds if they become white hats within a week. He threatened to expose hackers if they did not return the funds.

Part of statement read,

We are 100% committed to returning all funds, tracking exploit managers, exposing them completely and providing them to the corresponding judicial system. Remember that robbers need to be lucky every time. Police officers only need to get lucky once.

But in the end, the hacker turned out to be a white hat.Hackers this morning before returning the money Sent With 1 million OP tokens to Vitalik Buterin’s public wallet message It said:

Hi Vitalik, I believe in you, I just want to know your opinion on this. By the way, please help me confirm the return address, and I will return the rest after you. And hello Wintermute, sorry, I only have 18M, and this is what I can return. Be optimistic!

Six hours later, we started returning 18 million in batches of 1 million per transaction. So far, hackers have sent 17 million OP tokens to a wallet that Gaevoy claims to belong to Optimism.

🙃

— Hopeful cynic (@EvgenyGaevoy) June 10, 2022

In response to the hacker’s decision, Gaevoy tweeted an upside-down smiley emoji. Optimism also posted that it had received the stolen code, revealing that Wintermute “promised to give a refund to the Optimism Foundation.”

In the last few hours, the address has opened a line of communication with Wintermute onchain and a 17mm 20mm OP has been returned.Was sent as much as 1mm @VitalikButerin Yesterday (🤷‍♂️) is recovering.

I will post it as soon as it is updated.

— Optimism (✨🔴_🔴✨) (@ optimismPBC) June 10, 2022

Hackers will keep the remaining 2 million OP tokens as prizes. The Optimism Foundation has also confirmed that it is in the process of recovering one million OPs sent to Vitalik Buterin.

Return news had a positive impact on OP prices. Tokens have risen 13.2% in the last 24 hours, making them one of the biggest winners today.