Poly Network Hacker Returns More Than 50% of Stolen $600M

The hacker responsible for the massive theft of $600M from the Poly Network, has returned more than half of the stolen fortune. 

Earlier this week, the DeFi space was rocked with the news of a hack on the Poly Network. The attacker managed to walk away with over $600 million in stolen digital assets, making it the largest heist in decentralized finance (DeFi) history. 

The Poly Network immediately took to Twitter to inform its community of the incident. Poly had supporters at hand ready to help secure the network including Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao. In a Tweet Zhao said, “We are coordinating with all our security partners to proactively help. There are no guarantees. We will do as much as we can.”

The network reacted to the hack, not just by prompting notifying the community, but also by releasing a letter to the hacker. The letter pled for an amicable “solution” to be worked out. 

Whether the letter pulled the hacker’s heartstrings or the entire hack was a ploy for attention, the attacker began to return funds yesterday. The first amount equaled $10,000 and 15 minutes later another $1 million USDC arrived. 

By the end of the night, the network reported that just over $260 million returned. 

The latest update from Poly shows a total of $342 million returned. This sum includes $4.6M on Ethereum, $252M on Binance Smart Chain, and $85M on Polygon. The remaining amount equates to $268M on Ethereum. 

Poly Network games continue

Despite the massive blow to the Poly Network, the hacker appears relatively compliant. Not only did the hacker return funds to the requested wallet addresses provided by Poly, but they also participated in a Q&A. 

The Q&A is broken up into four parts here. 

The hacker stated no interest in money and that returning the funds was “always the plan.” The hacker also commented on the Poly Network being both a “decent” and “sophisticated” system. 

It’s not often that these types of attacks see such positive resolutions. However, the network is still hoping for the final $268 million to be returned.