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Hacker Returns Nearly All of $68,000,000 Worth of Crypto Stolen From Whale Wallet: On-Chain Data

May 13, 2024

A hacker who managed to steal nearly $70 million in crypto from a whale has returned almost everything, according to on-chain data.

Earlier this month, a hacker successfully phished a whale using what’s known as an “address poisoning” scheme.

The scheme involves sending someone a small amount of crypto with an address that looks similar to the victim’s wallet. The tactic is designed to trick the victim into copying the bad actor’s address from their transaction history and having the crypto sent to that wallet instead.

Blockchain security firm CertiK notes that the scammer mimicked a transfer of 0.05 Ethereum (ETH), which tricked the victim into sending 1,155 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) worth $69.3 million to the wrong address. The hacker subsequently swapped the WBTC stack into 23,000 ETH.

However, after an exchange of words over Etherscan’s messaging service, the hacker appears to have been compelled to send the crypto assets back to the whale.

According to blockchain tracking firm Arkham, the hacker has returned nearly all the stolen funds in a flurry of transactions over the past several days. Arkham’s data shows that the whale has been made whole and is now holding 22,960 ETH worth $66.33 million

The hacker never made an attempt to obfuscate the stolen funds through crypto mixers or further trading.

At time of writing, Ethereum is trading at $2,881, down 1.43% in the last 24 hours.

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