A decidedly surprising ending is looming for what it was the biggest cryptocurrency theft ever. Poly Network, which specializes in decentralized finance or “DeFi”, was hit last week by a major attack stealing over $ 600 million worth of tokens. Now the cryptocurrency platform, according to CNBC, would like the perpetrator of the theft to become a security consultant for the company.
The theft and return of money
The crypto theft of the century immediately took an unusual twist with the hacker taking the unusual step of returning most of the stolen money. All but $ 33 million of the cryptocurrency has now been returned. However, more than $ 200 million in funds are currently locked into an account that requires passwords from Poly Network and the hacker to gain access.
Poly Network has ordered the hacker, who calls “Mr. White Hat”, to provide the password, known as the “private key”, needed to recover the money.
Poly Network had offered a “bug bounty” of $ 500,000 to return all the money. Such awards are typically awarded to people who report bugs to help companies find and fix defects before they are disclosed to the general public.
The hacker initially turned down the bounty offer. However, in a message embedded in a digital currency transaction on Monday, the hacker said, “I am considering taking the bounty as a bonus for public hackers if they can hack the Poly network.”
Poly Network is one Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform, that is, it leverages blockchain technology to transform financial products into secure and transparent protocols that operate without intermediaries.