The hacker responsible for withdrawing $47 million from the decentralized exchange protocol KyberSwap last week promised to release a statement later this week about a possible deal with victims.
The attacker, whose identity remains unknown, encrypted a message in an Ethereum transaction late November 28 and promised to release a “treaty” statement on November 30.
“I said I was willing to negotiate. In return, I have (mostly) received threats, deadlines, and general unfriendliness from the management team. That’s okay, I don’t mind,” they said.
“Assuming I face further hostility, we can arrange to meet at a later date when we are all feeling more civil. You just have to say the word,” they continued. “If not, we will continue as planned on November 30.”
A $47 million exploit
The ominous message comes about a week after $47 million was suspiciously siphoned from KyberSwap’s Elastic Pools liquidity solution. KyberSwap advised all users to withdraw their funds immediately after the incident. It has since offered a 10% bounty to whoever was responsible for the exploit, who had already left a message encoded in blockchain data stating that negotiations would begin once they were “fully equipped.”
Yesterday, the team said in a statement that it had managed to recover $4.7 million.
About the author
Ryan Weeks is deals editor at The Block and focuses on fundraising, mergers and acquisitions and institutional trends in the crypto space, among other topics. He is mainly interested in investigative work, so please send tips! Ryan previously worked at Financial News and Dow Jones as a fintech correspondent in London. Previously, he wrote for various publications, including Sifted, AltFi and Wired. In addition to journalism, Ryan is an avid reader and writer. He loves anything active, especially running, rugby, climbing and tennis.
