260 million dollars returned to cryptocurrency platform by anonymous heist team

August 16, 2021
260 Million Dollar Poly Network cryptocurrency platform

According to blockchain researchers, over a third of the 600 million dollars stolen by hackers were returned as reported by a finance platform Poly Network via Twitter. They have also posted further information about the digital wallet that the hackers have sent the tokens. Threatening the hackers to take further legal action, the Poly Network was forcing them to return all of the funds they stole to their digital addresses.  

Furthermore, there were more than 600 million dollars of coin value inside the wallet upon the announcement. And according to blockchain forensics, the amount of the returned cryptocurrency in an array of coins was about 260.97 million dollars. The hackers are still anonymous and stated in a cryptic message that they did the heist so they could prove how exposed to vulnerability many finance platforms are. Although, they have not yet verified the legitimacy of the said messages from the hackers. 

Many firms have been trying to help Poly Network with this situation, such as the cryptocurrency firm Tether, of which an executive has said that they had frozen 33 million dollars associated with the hack. 

According to Tom Robinson, a co-founder of the firm Elliptic, a possible reason why the hackers have decided to return the 260.97 million dollars could be because of the weight of laundering stolen crypto assets are costing them. Blockchain analytics and its transparency being implemented by financial companies make it difficult to launder and cash out crypto assets. 

This kind of heist has also been compared to what happened to a Tokyo-based exchange Coincheck back in 2018, wherein up to 530 million dollars of digital coins were stolen from them by anonymous hackers. There was also the Mt. Gox exchange, a Tokyo-based firm, which has shut down due to being stolen over half a billion dollars in bitcoin.  

 

The cyberattack against the Poly Network is also considered to hit an all-time high in its losses from theft.

 

It has further outdone the criminal losses of a firm called CipherTrace with 474 million dollars against the Poly Network’s 600 million dollars. 

 

Decentralized Finance platforms’ vulnerability

Since DeFi platforms are free of direct gatekeepers like banks, their exposure and risks to threats are more likely. Additionally, even though these decentralized finance platforms have been positively contributing growth and boost to economic activity, their computer codes’ technical flaws and vulnerabilities make them exposed and at risk with cybercrime-like hacks. 

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