$47 Million Bounty Paid Out by Blockstream After Massive Crypto Theft
A public negotiation between hackers and cryptocurrency firm Liquid Network ended on Sunday with the attackers keeping $47 million of a $320 million theft as a 'reward' for identifying what they said was a bug in the company's platform.
The trading platform Liquid Network, which supports a coin pegged to the price of Bitcoin (BTC), said that 'purported white-hat hackers' withdrew 4,000 BTC ($320 million) from its own wallet on Sunday. Blockstream, which runs Liquid, pledged to reach out to the hackers and said deposits and withdrawals were paused.
The two sides negotiated in public on the blockchain over the next 12 hours, with the hackers initially writing 'we are whitehats, contact us on chain' in a message attached to the transaction bridging the $320 million out of Liquid's account. The hackers demanded Blockstream fix an alleged vulnerability before transferring the money back safely.
After several public and private messages, the hacker sent $266.5 million worth of Bitcoin back to Liquid on Monday morning and kept 598.5 BTC, worth about $47 million, as a reward. The two sides have continued to go back and forth in public but encrypted messages on the blockchain.