ISLAMABAD
\nOver one-third of the $613 million in cryptocurrency stolen from blockchain platform Poly Network has been returned, with the hacker saying he did it for fun following one of the largest crypto heists ever.
\nAround one day after it fell victim to the largest heist in crypto history by volume of assets stolen, Poly Network announced that the alleged perpetrator, or perpetrators, of the hack returned around $260 million in bitcoin, ethereum, and polygon tokens stolen in the attack.
\nAbout $353 million in stolen assets remain missing as of Thursday evening, the platform said.
\nThe hack sent ripples across the cryptocurrency world, with the infamous Mt Gox hack of 2014, considered to be the largest until now, paling in comparison. The attack on Mt Gox eventually resulted in the exchange\u2019s bankruptcy after thieves stole bitcoin worth $450 million at the time.
\nThose behind the Poly Network hack, however, seemingly heeded the pleas by the platform to return the tokens. Addressing the hackers directly on Wednesday, Poly Network warned that it was \u201cunwise\u201d of the hackers to attempt any further transactions given the attention they brought onto themselves and noted that the victims were \u201ctens of thousands\u201d of ordinary members of the crypto community. Poly Network named three addresses for the hackers to dump the stolen coins, which is precisely what they began doing hours later, to the surprise of some observers.
\nIn an improvised Q&A session held through transaction notes, the attacker claimed they wanted to expose a vulnerability in the platform\u2019s contract calls to \u201cbeat any insiders or hackers.\u201d
\nCalling the Poly Network a \u201cdecent system,\u201d the hacker explained that they did not want to divulge the \u201cbug\u201d to a project team because \u201canyone could be the traitor.\u201d
\nThey claimed that \u201csaving\u201d the assets in a secure account was the \u201conly solution.\u201d In subsequent messages, the attacker said that they were angry at the network for making them a scapegoat before they had a chance to explain themselves, and insisted that they had no intention to launder the coins. \u201cThat\u2019s always the plan! I\u2019m not very interested in money,\u201d the attacker said, claiming they perpetrated the hack \u201cfor fun.\u201d
\nClaiming that their motivation was \u201cto do something cool but not harmful,\u201d the hacker raised even more eyebrows by asking for donations in support of his stunt.
\nSo far, the attacker has racked up around $3,500 \u2013 a far cry from the $613 million worth of tokens snatched from the platform.
\nPoly Network is a transnational decentralised finance platform that operates on the Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum and Polygon blockchains, connecting them in one cyber-spot so that they can cut out intermediaries, thus making coin transfers easier and cheaper. It was not immediately clear from Poly Network\u2019s website where the platform is based or who runs it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
ISLAMABAD Over one-third of the $613 million in cryptocurrency stolen from blockchain platform Poly Network has been returned, with the hacker saying he did it for fun following one of the largest crypto heists ever. Around one day after it fell victim to the largest heist in crypto history by volume of assets stolen, Poly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-209457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-business"],"yoast_head":"\n