In a surprising development, it has been reported that the individual responsible for the hack of Euler Finance has returned 51,000 #ETH to the DeFi lending protocol.
This amount was in addition to a further 7,737 ETH that the hacker returned, bringing the total amount of funds returned to 58,737 ETH. This translates to approximately $102 million at current rates.
This is a noteworthy development following the attack on Euler on March 13, 2023. The hack resulted in one of the largest flash loan attacks in DeFi history, with the #protocol suffering losses of $197 million.
The attacker was able to exploit the smart contract vulnerability in the protocol and make off with over $197 million worth of various crypto assets.
These included $8.7 million worth of DAI, $19 million worth of wrapped #bitcoin (wBTC), $34 million in USD Coin (USDC), and about $136 million worth of staked ether (stETH). Since the attack, Euler Labs, the developer of the protocol, has been working with security professionals and law enforcement to track down the hacker and recover the stolen funds.
The team even offered a $1 million reward for any information that could lead to the recovery of the funds.
In an interesting turn of events, the owner of a wallet containing 10 million of the stolen DAI sent out a message offering to provide detailed information about the Euler hacker in exchange for the 10% bounty that Euler had previously offered.
Another individual, who identified themselves as "Euler exploiter 3," followed this message with an email address and asked Euler to contact them with information regarding the people responsible for the March 13 exploit. This person explicitly stated they were not interested in the bounty. It appears that the attackers may be turning on each other.
It is still unclear whether the hacker returned the funds voluntarily or under pressure from the authorities. Some speculate that the hacker may have negotiated with Euler Labs to avoid legal consequences.
Nonetheless, the return of such a significant amount of funds is a positive development for the DeFi lending protocol, which will be looking to further enhance its security measures.