Curve Offers Hackers A 10% Bounty In Return For Rest Of The Cryptos
Curve Finance, Alchemix, and Metronome have launched a collaborative effort to retrieve stolen cash following the recent vulnerabilities that attacked Curve’s pools.
The platforms have promised a 10% retention bonus if those responsible refunds the remaining 90%. The vulnerability resulted in a loss of around $70 million in crypto assets, implying that the prize given is approximately $7 million.
Could Offering Bounty Lead to a Good Solution?
The DeFi platforms affected by the Curve crime are working tirelessly to retrieve the stolen cash. Curve, Alchemix, and Metronome, based on the information stored on the chain, provided the hackers a 10% bounty as a reward, pushing the hackers to hand over the remaining 90% of the stolen assets.
Curve Finance informed customers about the deal they were making with the hackers through X, emphasizing that if they decided to give back the cash, they would face no more legal or criminal charges. According to the curve described in the joint message submitted via Etherscan,
“The proposal is conditional on no further legal action or engagement of law enforcement. We strongly want to settle this politely. There will be no chance of us following this further, nor will there be any law enforcement difficulties.”
A Final Word Of Caution
The three protocols offered the hackers time till August 6th to respond to their invitation. They also stated that if the hackers decline the offer, the protocols would open the bounty program to the public and provide a 10% reward to anybody who recognizes them in a method that leads to punishment. The firm’s warning stated,
“If you do not participate in the voluntary repayment and finish the requirements by August 6th at 0800 UTC, we will open the prize pool to the public and give the full 10% to the person who can locate you in a way that results in your conviction in the courts. We will go after you from every aspect and to the maximum force of the law.”
All three protocols have established direct contact with the hackers at curvenegotiation@protonmail.com and asked them to react and accept the offer in order to not face legal action.
The guidelines further stated that anybody answering for negotiations must validate their credentials and be in charge of their email account on-chain.
The Curve Breach
Hackers stole around $70 million worth cryptocurrency as a result of the Curve attack. This amount contained CRV tokens valued at around $4.52 million, resulting in a considerable decline in the token’s valuation.
The exploit relied on a Vyper flaw known as a reentrancy mistake. This bug permitted hackers to empty many Curve stablecoin pools, causing significant havoc in the DeFi ecosystem.
Source: CoinMarketCap (Curve’s market capitalization)
Curve Finance creator Michael Egorov reportedly obtained many loans utilizing around 47% of CRV’s circulating supply, further spooking DeFi markets.
After the reduction in the value of CRV, various DeFi protocols, including Aave, Abracadabra, and others, had significant consequences. This is because the drop threatened Egorov’s $168 million lending status, which could trigger a chain reaction on DeFi.
Curve and Egorov, on the other hand, received backing from significant figures in the crypto and DeFi world, like Power DeFi user DCF God, Tron Foundation CEO Justin Sun, and Jeffrey Huang, popularly known as Machi Big Brother.
Sun, DCF God, and Huang acquired substantial volumes of CRV from Egorov, lowering the loan’s principal amount from $63 million to $54 million.
Cream Finance, which provided Egorov $1 million in USDT and USDC, and Huang, who gave Egorov $1.5 million in USDT, were two more players that aided him.
Closing Thoughts
Curve and the other protocol’s promotion effort resembles that of DeFi protocol Euler Finance, which was hit by a severe attack earlier this year.
However, the protocol proved effective in negotiating with the hackers and retrieving the stolen cash. But no one can confirm whether Curve Finance will get back their lost funds or not from hackers.
