The biggest news in the DeFi space is the attack on Euler Finance, which resulted in a staggering $197 million exploit. However, recent developments suggest the situation may not be as dire as initially thought.
According to reports, the hacker, whose identity is still unknown, might be having a change of heart and contemplating returning the stolen money. Today, approximately 3,000 ETH (nearly $5.4 million) were returned to the deployer address of Euler Finance from the hacker’s address.
The transaction data used to send the funds were identified by PeckShield, a well-known blockchain investigator. The fact that the funds were returned is highly unusual in crypto hacking.
Stolen funds are often moved through multiple addresses to obfuscate their origin and make it difficult to track them down.
Chances Of Returning The Entire Loot Is Still Slim
This news of the return of funds has been met with a certain degree of relief, as this hack was considered the biggest DeFi hack in 2023. However, there is still a long way to go, as the chances of the hacker returning the entire loot are slim.
At the time of this writing, no more outward transactions have been recorded, so it is unclear whether the hacker will return the rest of the stolen funds. Meanwhile, Euler Labs have revealed that the Euler Foundation would reward anyone who would come forward with information leading to the arrest of the protocol attacker with a hefty $1 million payout.
The attack on Euler Finance involved multiple transactions that enabled the hacker to steal a whopping $197 million. After gaining access to the funds, the hacker used a multichain bridge to transfer the stolen money from the Binance Smart Chain (BNB Chain) to Ethereum.
Coincidentally, almost immediately after the reward prize was announced, the stolen funds were transferred to Tornado Cash, a famous crypto mixer designed to hide the trail of transactions. Then, the hacker returned 90% of the funds, all of which happened within 24 hours.
