White Hats Keep $48M Bounty Fee After Returning Stolen Bitcoin
On September 7, at 16:09 UTC, nearly 3,400 BTC was returned to the Liquid Network federation wallet after being withdrawn by a group of hackers known as 'White hats'.
The initial withdrawal on Sunday was around 4,000 BTC from the Liquid Network federation wallet. However, instead of taking all of it, the White hats decided to return 3,400 BTC and keep 598.5 BTC as an implied bounty fee worth approximately $48 million.
The negotiations between the White hats and Blockstream were made public through a series of on-chain messages. The hackers initially asked if sending 'most' of the funds back to the federation script was acceptable, but later requested that Blockstream fix a bug before transferring the money back safely.
Blockstream eventually confirmed that they had patched the issue and it was safe for the White hats to return the funds. However, the hackers decided to keep 15% as a finder's fee, which some people found surprising, while others saw it as reasonable.