• A hacker stole 120,000 ETH tokens, worth $321 million, from the Wormhole cross-chain bridge.
• The hacker then started moving funds and swapping the ETH tokens for other cryptocurrencies.
• The Wormhole bridge team offered a $10 million bounty for the total return of the stolen funds.
A hacker recently infiltrated the Wormhole cross-chain bridge and stole 120,000 Ether tokens, worth a staggering $321 million at the time. On-chain data showed that the hacker began moving the stolen funds soon after the hack, swapping them for other cryptocurrencies.
The hacker first moved $155 million worth of Ether tokens to 1Inch, a decentralized exchange. With these tokens, they swapped 95,630 ETH for 86,473 wstETH – a wrapped version of Ethereum liquid staking protocol Lido’s stETH token. This was followed by the hacker depositing 27,661 wstETH and minting 14.5 million DAI. The hacker then used the DAI to purchase 8,913 stETH, and then used those to borrow a further $1.5 million worth of DAI.
On-chain tracker @spreekaway noticed that the hacker even funded a new address with 0.1 ETH. This led Spreek to speculate that the hacker could be connected to the BNB bridge hacker, given similar behavioral patterns.
The Wormhole bridge team responded to the hack by offering a $10 million bounty for the total return of the stolen funds. They provided an anonymous email address for the hacker to get in contact with them.
The incident is a stark reminder of the importance of security and how vulnerable digital assets can be, even when stored on a secure platform. It is unclear where the hacker will go from here, but it is likely that the team behind the Wormhole bridge will be closely monitoring their activities, hoping to recover their stolen funds.