the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, the hacker who recently stole $611 million in cryptocurrencies from the decentralized Poly Network finance platform is ready to surrender and has started to return the funds. It is likely that the hacker has been caught and that they are trying to avoid criminal charges. While this was one of the largest thefts in DeFi history, the damage may be limited. It can be difficult to launder or cash out cryptocurrency without leaving a trail of clues, so the incident may discourage future attacks.
One of the biggest cryptocurrency heists on record is gradually being reversed, as hacker “Mr. White Hat” continues to return the stolen assets to Poly Network. The hacker behind the heist said in a Q&A embedded within a digital currency transaction that he conducted the hack “for fun.”
Poly Network, a peer-to-peer DeFi platform, said on Wednesday that a vulnerability in its code led to a heist of $610 million in assets from its platform. That hack was soon partially reversed, with the hacker returning $258 million a few hours after the attack.
Mr. White Hat is continuing to give back the money, based on tweets from Poly Network. As of Thursday afternoon, a total $342 million has been returned to Poly Network, leaving $268 million worth of ether still outstanding.
The heist highlights the ongoing risks of cryptocurrencies and decentralized finance platforms, which allow users to conduct transactions without traditional safeguards from banks or exchanges.
If Crypto is so secure how does a guy in his pajamas steal $610,000,000?
I’ll ask Charlie Ponzi.
It’s probably somebody inside the US government