The hacker responsible for the $196 million Euler Financial lending protocol attack has returned the majority of the stolen assets.
On March 25, the hacker returned 51,000 Ether (ETH $1,769), which at the time of this writing is valued around $88 million. On the same day, a second transfer of 7,737 ETH, valued almost $13 million, was made.
Prior to this, on March 18, the hacker transmitted 3,000 ETH to the protocol, which was then worth close to $5.4 million. Some of the stolen assets are still under the exploiter’s possession.
The largest decentralized finance (DeFi) hack of 2023 was a flash loan attack on March 13 that saw the hacker do several transactions and steal around $196 million from the protocol.
8.8 million Dai ($1.00), 849,000 wrapped bitcoins ($WBTC), 85 million staked ether ($stETH), and 34 million US dollars ($1.00) are among the stolen valuables.
A few days following the attack, the hacker contacted Euler via an on-chain message and demanded compliance with the protocol. They said
“We want to make this easy on all those affected. No intention of keeping what is not ours. Setting up secure communication. Let us come to an agreement,”
The exploiter had already been asked to restore 90% of the money they had stolen within 24 hours, or else the protocol would take legal action. While there was still no reply, Euler announced a $1 million prize for any information leading to the exploiter’s apprehension 24 hours later.
Other transactions executed by the hacker include a transfer of 1,000 ETH Smart Staking (NETH), which at the time was valued $1.65 million through authorized cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash.
PeckShield, a blockchain analytics company, reports that about 100 ETH were delivered to a wallet address that one of the victims probably owned. The wallet address had previously begged for the attacker to refund their “life savings” in an on-chain message.
