Wintermute exploiter returns 17M OP tokens

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Hacker showed his kind heart with the return of the majority of the stolen amount of OP tokens. 

Wintermute is a leading global crypto market maker. This platform brings partners with the world’s best crypto exchanges and projects to provide liquidity. Recently a hacker attacked the liquidity platform and secured around 20 millionOptimism (OP) tokens from the platform. In a response action, Wintermute warned the hacker to file a case if the exploiter will not return funds within one week.

Yesterday, at 12:09 PM UTC hacker started to return stolen OP tokens. Within 22 minutes, he returned 17 million OP Tokens in a total of 17 transactions, as per available data on Etherscan.

Previously Hacker sent 1 million OP tokens to Vitalik Buterin, co-founder of the second biggest smart contract-enabled crypto project Ethereum.  Hacker was still holding 1 million OP tokens. 

Through this decision, Hacker completed his promise, which he said earlier. 

A spokesperson from Wintermute stated that the team received better & positive news regarding the recent incident because it will help the team to focus on research & development more perfectly.

“We see today’s news as a very positive development: the Optimism foundation has been made whole and can focus on building and growing the ecosystem.”

Wintermute also appreciated the ability of the hacker to find out the bug associated with the platform and also appreciated the decision of the hacker to show that he turned to a white hat with the return of funds.

“The person who discovered the exploit chose to wear a white hat, setting a good precedent for the whole crypto community.”

Earlier in the crypto industry, many crypto platforms faced hacking incidents and the majority of them faced 100% loss but there were very few cases where hackers returned the stolen funds.

In August 2021, a hacker stole $600 million worth of crypto assets from Polygon network’s cross-chain platform. But later returned the majority of the stolen amounts.

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