Victim of a flaw, the Wormhole platform, designed to create links between the different blockchains, was stolen 120,000 wETH (Ether wrapped), or 323 million dollars. She offers hackers an amicable deal, in exchange for the stolen cryptocurrency.
Launched in August 2021, the Wormhole platform probably did not imagine living in such complicated first months. Created to facilitate the exchange of cryptocurrencies between different blockchains, Wormhole hoped to make transactions between Ethereum, Solana, Terra and Binance Smart Chain more fluid. Wormhole was to be a bridge, authenticating transactions while allowing anyone to monitor them. Problem, Wednesday February 2, Wormhole was the victim of a historic hack and has just lost a fortune.
120,000 wETH stolen
Without going into the technical details of this hack (you can find details here), the Wormhole network was tricked by hackers who managed to obtain certification for a gigantic transaction, without actually owning anything. By carrying out a first transaction of 0.1 ETH on the Solana blockchain, they would have, in a way, succeeded in parasitizing the Wormhole verification system.
Thanks to this exploit, all they had to do was to falsely authenticate a transaction of 120,000 ETH on Solana and transfer them to Ethereum to recover money that did not belong to them. They then withdrew 80,000 ETH, then 10,000 ETH… Enough to pull off the hold-up of the century. Later, on February 3, 2022, on Twitter, Wormhole indicated that he had closed the fault.
These 120,000 stolen ETH correspond, at the time of purchase, to 323 million dollars (286 million euros).
Wormhole offers an amicable deal
Undoubtedly panicked, the Wormhole teams try to get out of this situation thanks to an arrangement. They sent a message to the hackers asking them to return the money, in exchange for a reward of 10 million dollars. A not very advantageous deal in appearance, but rather attractive in reality. These 10 million would be obtained in a legal way and would make robbers ethical hackers (“ white hat “). Even if the stolen loot is more substantial, they can’t do much with all those tokens without being watched, and potentially arrested. Wormhole’s offer could therefore interest them, while allowing them to be acclaimed as heroes.
This is not the first time that this kind of event has taken place. In August 2021, a hacker agreed to return the $600 million he stole in exchange for a reward. It was then 500,000 dollars, which may not seem like much compared to Wormhole’s proposal.