- The Poly Network hacker has finished handing back $610 million worth of tokens he stole two weeks ago
- The Poly Network hack was the biggest yet in the DeFi space
- The Poly team will now return the funds to users
The hacker of the Poly Network yesterday completed the handover of more than $600 million worth of cryptocurrency he stole from the platform two weeks ago. The white hat hacker, who revealed that he only took the funds to illustrate the lax security with the cross-blockchain network, began the process shortly after the hack was revealed and handed over the last of the funds yesterday, allowing Poly Network to begin refunding users whose cryptocurrency was stolen.
Honest Joe or Inexperienced Money Launderer?
The Poly Network hack saw around $85 million in USDC stolen from the Polygon network, some $250 million taken from Binance Smart Chain, and over $270 million stolen from the Ethereum network in what is the biggest DeFi hack to date. It soon emerged however that the hacker didn’t intend to make off with the proceeds of the hack, stating that he carried it out in order to highlight the bug he exploited, although there are suggestions that the difficulty in laundering that amount of money was the real reason behind the about face.
The hacker had been in discussions with Poly about how to return the funds, during which time he was offered a job with the company, and the final wallet keys have been handed over to Poly so they can unlock what’s left and begin the process of handing it back to users. Poly released a blog post on the matter on Monday, announcing that they will return the funds “within the shortest time frame possible.”
Poly Network Hack Was “Wild Adventure”
The experience is certainly a lucky escape for Poly Network users, with the hacker appending a note to one of the final transactions in which he apologizes for the inconvenience caused, calling the entire process a “wild adventure”. We’re not sure the would-be hack victims and Poly Network team would agree.
