Poly Network Hackers Have Returned All Stolen Funds

The infamous hacker who made away with $613 million from the Poly Network attack has returned most of the stolen funds after forty-eight hours of silence.

Decentralized peer-to-peer financial transaction facilitator, Poly Network, was attacked earlier this week and ripped off of more than 600 million USD. The hack is regarded as one of the biggest heists in crypto history.

Poly Network is not necessarily a blockchain. Instead its network helps enable people to exchange tokens across various blockchains, providing interoperability across networks like Ethereum, Binance, and Polygon.

On Tuesday, Poly network revealed they’d been attacked, and followed their admittance with a clear warning. “The amount of money you hacked is the biggest one in the defi [decentralized finance] history,” their open letter to the hacker read. “Law enforcement in any country will regard this as a major economic crime and you will be pursued...We will pursue legal action against you if you do not comply.”

The business then mentioned in the letter that they will "find a solution" along with the attacker.

Loot Returned After Warning

In their tweet on Wednesday, the attacked network revealed that about $260 million of the stolen funds had been returned, with more than $353 million, however, still missing.

In the late hours of Thursday, Poly Network confirmed that all but a certain $33 million had been returned. The $33 million worth of tokens was confirmed to be USDTs frozen by Tether Limited, the company responsible for the issuance of the tokens.

Digital communications exchanged by Elliptic and Chainalysis's crypto-tracking company indicated that the hacker who claimed responsibility for the breach stated it was “for fun” and that they intended to “expose the vulnerability” before others could take advantage of it. They also said they were “saving the world” from similar attacks in the future.

“It was always the intention to return the tokens,” says the attacker in their verbose but untraceable string of messages. “I'm not particularly interested in money.”

Tom Robinson, co-founder of Elliptic, a London-based blockchain analytics and compliance company, said that the hacker had published a three-page-long Q&A session on one of the blockchains, taking the form of a self-interview.

Among the notes that have been stored on the Ethereum blockchain, the hacker is noted to have remarked, "I know it hurts when people are attacked, but shouldn't they be made to realise something?" along with claims that he had done nothing except search for weakness.

Since the return of the funds, Poly network has dubbed the hacker “a White Hat,” a sector jargon for an ethical hacker who aims to expose cyber vulnerabilities. They have also offered the attacker a $500,000 bounty as reward.

As of press time, Poly Network hasn't been able to verify the legitimacy of the communications, and there has been no record of who sent them the tokens.

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