Poly Network has been dealt with the greatest cryptocurrency theft in history as a whopping $600 million in crypto was stolen by a yet untraceable hacker from the platform.
A supposed glitch in Poly Network made it easier for the hacker to penetrate the platform and currently, Poly Network is willing to reach an agreement with the hacker.
As seen in a letter posted Tuesday on Twitter, Poly Network said “The amount of money you hacked is the biggest one in defi history, the money you stole are from tens of thousands of crypto community members… you should talk to us to work out a solution.”
So far, addresses used by the hacker to steal the funds have been identified. The assets linked to them include a mix of various coins including $33 million of Tether. However, Tether was able to freeze the account in about 20 minutes of learning of the attack.
Other cryptocurrency platforms have been urged by Poly Network to blacklist all assets linked to the addresses. Binance has assured of its willingness in coordinating with all its security partners to actively help.
Several addresses in which the hacker might likely return the money were created by Poly Network and on Wednesday at 7:47 a.m. ET, Poly Network was shocked to have received about $4.7 million back and in the afternoon about $261 million had been returned, this was reported by Chainalysis, the blockchain forensics.
The hacker’s identity remains unknown but in one of the notes attached to the transactions, the hacker wrote that hacking Poly Network was for fun and a challenge.
“I take the responsibility to expose the vulnerability before any insiders hiding and exploiting it!” the attacker wrote. “I understood the risk of exposing myself even if I don’t do evil. So I used temporary email, IP or _so called_ fingerprint, which was untraceable. I prefer to stay in the dark and save the world.”
But Chainalysis debunks the hacker’s reason that the hack was for mere fun. The blockchain forensics said that the hack had gained the world’s attention already, and there’s no way the hacker could safely withdraw the funds without being caught because transactions are recorded and traceable.
“With the inherent transparency of blockchains and the eyes of an entire industry on you, how could any cryptocurrency hacker expect to escape with a large cache of stolen funds? In most cases, the best they could hope for would be to evade capture as the funds sit frozen in a blacklisted private wallet.” Chainalysis wrote.
