Poly Network hackers return $ 256 million in stolen crypto funds

After hackers hit Poly Network with one of the biggest crypto heists in recent memory, the company published a open letter Tuesday, begging the culprits to recover their assets. Apparently, the letter worked, and hackers have reportedly already started to return a good chunk of their loot.

The block first reported that whoever was behind the hack returned around $ 256 million in crypto assets to the company on Wednesday morning. It’s still well below the $ 611 million that hackers would have stolen, making it the biggest hack in the history of decentralized finance, often known as DeFi.

Less than 24 hours after Poly posted his letter – reminding attackers that law enforcement “in any country” would likely hunt them down for their crime – hackers began transferring millions of different assets to Poly Network’s crypto wallet. Among other assets, the hackers returned $ 2 million in ShibaCoin, $ 1.1 million in Binance BTCB tokens and about $ 1 million in custom token that the attackers created themselves, literally called “The hacker is ready to surrender,” according to the Block.

Considering how the authorities through United States, Russia, China, and through the European Union have turned to tougher crackdowns on crypto crime, it’s not hard to see why these attackers may have gotten cold feet. There’s also the fact that a blockchain security provider, Slowmist, claims to have identified the attacker’s IP address and email information using bits of data the hackers left behind as a result of their exploits. In one Weibo post From Tuesday describing their findings, Slowmist described that the attack appeared to be “a long-planned, organized and well-prepared affair”. The post also suggests that the funds initially used to initiate the hack could be attributed to How? ‘Or’ What, an obscure crypto exchange based in China.

Poly Network has so far recovered over a third of its hackers, but many other companies in the big crypto world are not. A market research report on DeFi industry that fall earlier this week, it was discovered that bad actors had defrauded $ 474 million on platforms like Poly between January and July of this year.