White Hats Return 3,400 BTC to Liquid Network After Finder's Fee Negotiations

A hacker group known as 'White Hats' withdrew nearly 4,000 BTC from Liquid Network's federation wallet on Sunday. However, on Monday, they returned 3,400 BTC to the wallet.

The 598.5 BTC kept by the White Hats is approximately 15% of the total amount and is equivalent to a finder's fee worth around $48 million at today's prices.

The return transaction was confirmed on September 7 at 16:09 UTC, and it followed a series of messages written into Bitcoin blocks by both parties. The White Hats initially published a message in the OP_RETURN field asking for contact information, which led to Blockstream responding with an email address.

Later, the White Hats negotiated the return of the funds, but they decided to keep 15% as a bounty fee. Blockstream was not pleased with this decision and sent several encrypted messages to the White Hats, but their conversation remains private due to encryption. The saga is far from over, with many speculating that negotiations will continue.