Hacker Returns Over $600 Million Stolen Funds to Poly Network

Poly Network, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, was hit by a massive hacking incident, now considered the biggest crypto heist of all time, earlier this month. The stolen cryptocurrency funds amounted to over $600 million.

Fortunately for them, the unknown hacker returned nearly all of it, except the $33 million worth of Tether (USDT) that the issuers froze.

There was a twist, however. Over $200 million of assets was trapped in an account. Notably, it required passwords from both the hacker and the Poly Network. The former was not giving away the password saying they would only do so once everyone was ready.

The company then negotiated with the unknown hacker they call “Mr. White Hat” to return the abovementioned funds. In addition, Poly Network even offered a $500,000 reward if the hacker could help them identify a flaw in their system.

They even went further by offering Mr. White Hat the job of the platform’s Chief Security Advisor. The plea worked, and the hacker has finally granted the company access to the private key to the last batch of the hacked amount.

Poly Network now confirms that all the user assets have been fully recovered. They also stated that they are in the process of returning these assets to the users.

For the record, this is by far the biggest crypto heist ever. It exceeded the 2018 Coincheck attack with $534.8 million and the 2014 Mt.Gox attack with $450 million stolen.

While this is the case, the attack on Poly Network is bizarre in its own right. The hacker kept an open conversation with the company and, in the end, returned the $610 million worth of crypto assets he stole. However, as of right now, the $33 million frozen assets have not been released yet.