Hacker Returns $600 Million Worth of Stolen Cryptocurrencies

A few days ago, a hacker stole Tether in the value of about $600 million from a decentralized finance platform called Poly Network in what was one of the biggest cyber thefts in history.

When the news broke out, the hacker who performed the heist sent a message claiming that they did it “for fun.” Not many believed the perpetrator was serious, but a couple of days later, they returned almost all of the money to Poly Network. The company itself confirmed on Thursday that almost all of the stolen funds have returned.

Crypto Thief Returns the Stolen Goods

On Wednesday, an anonymous person said they were the one to steal the Tether from Poly network, claiming that they were “ready to return” the money. The people from Poly Network responded, asking the hacker to send it back to three different wallets.

Rather surprisingly, the hacker did exactly that – they sent more than $342 million straight away.

It happened on Thursday, but what about the rest of the money? The destiny of the remaining $268 million remains unknown, the reason being that those assets are locked in an account that requires passwords from both parties – the hacker and Poly Network.

What this practically means is that the hacker still has the option to keep the money away from its rightful owners. So, will the hacker do it?

The person embedded a message in one of the transactions, saying that they would give the key to Poly Network only when “everyone is ready.”

Does this mean that the hacker is asking something in return remains to be seen? However, according to the messages they’ve sent so far, it seems that their primary goal isn’t financial gain. Instead, according to the hacker, it’s all done “for fun.”

Was It Really “For Fun” Only?

This might be one of the biggest hacking stories in the history of cryptocurrency. However, unlike other hackers – like the Chinese cybercriminals who stole $87 million a few years ago – the protagonist of this hacking story apparently doesn’t want any money.

Instead, this could be the case of the so-called ethical hacking. The hacker’s main motivation for the theft could be that they wanted to point out a major security flaw in the network.  

Actually, that’s what the hacker shared with the world, saying that crypto developers should learn a valuable lesson from all this.

“I am _not_ very interested in money! I know it hurts when people are attacked, but shouldn’t they learn something from those hacks?”