Liquid Hackers Return Stolen Bitcoin as Sidechain Prepares Restart
A recent security incident on the Bitcoin sidechain Liquid has come to an end with the return of $270 million in Bitcoin. On Monday, January 3rd, CEO and former Blockstream executive Samson Mow announced that purported white-hat hackers had returned 3,400 BTC to the Liquid Federation wallet.
The return follows a Sunday security incident where hackers withdrew approximately $320 million from the Bitcoin sidechain's reserves. The hackers, who identified themselves as 'white hats', initially withdrew about 4,000 BTC, but eventually returned around 85% of the stolen funds.
Blockstream confirmed that the affected bridge nodes had been patched, and federation members were preparing for a coordinated restart of the network. Liquid issues L-BTC against Bitcoin held by its federation, so the return of most of the withdrawn Bitcoin restores much of the backing removed in the incident.