The Poly Network platform, which was hit by a massive hacker attack in August, has begun a process of recovering funds for affected users. As a reminder, this was the largest cryptocurrency theft in the history of the decentralized finance industry: a hacker stole more than $ 610 million in digital assets.
Fortunately, he returned almost all the funds to the creators of the project, declaring that he had no evil intentions on his part. Let’s talk about the situation in more detail.
By tradition, let’s start with an explanation. The Poly Network project has truly become the largest hack in the history of decentralized finance. The damage to netizens amounted to the equivalent of $ 611 million. The project code was not reviewed by third-party auditors, which means there could be weak points in it.
List of projects from the cryptocurrency niche hacked by hackers
They were discovered by a so-called white hacker – that is, a person who was not going to steal other people’s money. He hacked the project «for fun», and he already received the money as the cryptocurrency industry grew. In addition, the programmer clarified that massive project hacks make it possible to «fight fate», while the return of the stolen funds in full allowed him to remain a «moral leader» in the industry. He voiced his thoughts about what was happening separately.
As a result, the hackers’ statements turned out to be true. He did return the money to the project representatives, thanks to which the victims of the hack will receive a refund.
Biggest cryptocurrency theft
The day before, a representative of the Poly Network team said that the hacker had shared the private key from the wallet where the remaining coins he had stolen were kept. From his address, the developers were able to return 28,953 ETH and 1,032 WBTC for a total of $ 141 million.
Letter from the Poly Network team to the hacker asking for a refund
So far, the only part of the money that has not yet been returned to the startup consists of 33 million USDT, which Tether froze almost immediately after the hacker attack was reported. However, Poly Network is confident that these coins will soon be on their wallets.
Here is a quote from the project representatives, in which they share their attitude to the situation. The cue is from Decrypt.
We maintain a close relationship with Tether and monitor their activities in accordance with the standard fund recovery process. The stablecoin issuer approves with us the latest technical details of the transfer of coins.
This means that hacking victims will also receive the rest of their funds. However, the timing of the return of assets has not yet been announced.
Tether freezing funds
It is assumed that the project will soon be able to restore its work. Until that moment, everyone who has suffered financial losses from the hacker attack in any way should get their money back. As we have already noted, the white hacker who attacked the startup «originally planned to return the funds» and did his act «just for fun.» He previously notified the developers of this during their close communication on the transfer of digital assets.
This episode in the history of the cryptoindustry ended with a happy ending. However, happy endings are rare in themselves when it comes to cybercrime. Therefore, we recommend that you always be on the lookout, do not click on suspicious links, do not download suspicious files and always keep your passwords secret. And although in this case it would not help the users of the platform, in another situation, theoretically, it could do without losing funds.
We believe that this situation will remain in the memory of cryptocurrency lovers forever. Firstly, the hacking was remembered for its scale, because earlier projects from the field of decentralized finance lost, in the worst case, the equivalent of $ 59 million. Secondly, the entire amount was returned to the victims, which practically does not happen in the blockchain niche. And it is precisely such cases that make it not only unique, but also the most rapidly developing.
