‘Wintermute Hack Was an Inside Job,’ Says Crypto Analyst

• Wintermute suffered a $160 million hack on September 20.
• Crypto sleuth James Edwards claims that the hack is an inside job.
• However, Wintermute has not yet responded to the claims.

The Wintermute hack has new updates surfacing. According to crypto sleuth and researcher James Edwards, the $160 million hack is said to be an inside job.

The analysis was released by Edwards as a detailed report on Medium. The researcher believes that the style and the way in which the hack was carried out suggest that it was carried out by an internal party.

Edwards states in his report that:

The relevant transactions initiated by the EOA [externally owned address] make it clear that the hacker was likely an internal member of the Wintermute team.

However, Edwards does not seem to be a prominent researcher in the field. In fact, this is his first report on Medium. The report hasn’t attracted the attention of the Wintermute team, as they haven’t responded to the claims.

The analyst also said that the hacker recovered the private key for the EOA that was compromised and made calls on the Wintermute smart contract. He also added that there is no substantial proof to validate that the hack was done by an external hacker.

One would expect any smart contract responsible for the management of user/customer funds that’s been deployed onto a blockchain to be publicly verified to allow the general public an opportunity to examine and audit the unflattened Solidity code.

Edwards also highlights a 13.48 million UST transfer from Wintermute to the compromised smart contract during the hack. He questioned the Wintermute team about the transfer, especially when they knew that it was compromised.

Wintermute has grown significantly as a liquidity provider since its launch in 2017, with a daily trading volume that exceeds billions of dollars.

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