The hackers who stole $25 million worth of cryptocurrencies from the DeFi platform dForce through lender Lendf.me have now returned the entire sum. $10 million in ETH was taken by the hackers over the weekend, as well as a further $10 million in stablecoins and $4m in other coins, but dForce CEO Mindao Yang revealed late Tuesday that nearly all the stolen money had been returned, which it now has.
“Emotional and Taxing” Experience for Relieved CEO
A clearly relieved and delighted Yang took to Medium to confirm that, following the surprising news earlier this week that they were in communication with the hackers over the potential return of some of the coins, in fact nearly all of them had been sent back, albeit it in a different mix of cryptocurrencies:
It’s with great relief that I report that nearly all of the stolen funds have been recaptured through the efforts collaboratively made by our partners, law enforcement, investors, the community, and our team members.
Yang added that anyone who had lost funds during the incident would be made whole, and that the company would “come out the other side of this ordeal stronger”, reaffirming that he took full responsibility for the hack which had been “incredibly emotional and taxing”.
Centralized Tokens Saved the Day
Yang is extremely fortunate to have come through an attack on his platform without a financial loss, this being one of only two known occasions where the sum of stolen money was returned in full – the other known such event was a 2018 hack on SpankChain where $40,000 worth of ETH was stolen and returned.
However, it isn’t just benevolence on the part of the hackers that made this so. Key to the return of the funds was the centralized nature of most of the stolen tokens, which allowed the addresses holding them to be blacklisted and therefore unable to be sent on or sold by the hackers.
Once they realized they were unable to do anything with the tokens, returning them or abandoning them were the only two options open to the thieves.
Thankfully for Yang and dForce/Lendf.me users, they chose the former. It is highly doubtful that, had the coins been decentralized tokens like Bitcoin or Ethereum then this tale would not have had such a happy ending.
