Liquid Hackers Return Most Stolen Bitcoin After Bridge Patch
The Liquid hackers returned approximately 85% of the stolen Bitcoin from last week's bridge attack. On Monday, they transferred back 3,400 Bitcoin, leaving about 598 BTC still in their possession.
Liquid is a Bitcoin sidechain built by Blockstream. Users lock Bitcoin on the main network and receive a matching token called L-BTC that moves faster and more privately. However, this week's attack bypassed several security measures to move coins out of the bridge without the required 11-node approval.
Before returning the stolen funds, the hackers instructed Blockstream to patch the flaw in the bridge and update every node running the bridge. Blockstream responded promptly, signing a message on Monday morning to confirm that the issue was fixed and the funds were safe to send back.
The returned coins were transferred hours later, with the blockchain recording the transaction in block 965,950 at 19:09 UTC. The remaining 598 BTC is still worth approximately $47 million at Monday's Bitcoin price near $79,100.