The hacker or hackers who plundered more than $600 million of cryptocurrency assets from a decentralized finance platform finished returning almost all of the money Friday, marking a surprise conclusion to a heist that rattled the crypto industry.
The assets were transferred back to blockchain addresses controlled by Poly Network on Friday, according to an emailed statement from the company. All that remains outstanding are $33 million of tether tokens, frozen by the company Tether in the effort to recover the stolen goods.
Poly Network is still waiting for the hacker to provide access, known as the final key, to the wallet containing the returned crypto, the company said.
The incident highlights the risks of trading in crypto markets. Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler said recently that the area is rife with “fraud, scams and abuse” and in need of investor protections and regulation.
“When I look at DeFi projects, this stuff is not tried-and-true-tested,” said Halsey Huth, head of growth at MoonPay, a cryptocurrencies payments platform, referring to companies that provide financial services using blockchain technology. “Everyone interacting with this stuff knows there’s always a chance there’s going to be a bug or an exploit.”
