Hacker gets 500K reward for returning stolen cryptocurrency

[Porthos]

Hacker gets 500K reward for returning stolen cryptocurrency

The saga of what has been dubbed the biggest hack in the world of decentralized finance appears to be over as Poly Network recovered more than $610 million in cryptocurrency assets it lost two weeks ago and the hacker received a $500,000 bounty for returning the money.

www.bleepingcomputer.com

 

[Blues]

So right now the story just reads like they rewarded his theft/paid a ransom for their funds. If they gave him $500k for finding and pointing out a flaw/exploit I can understand that but this is just stated as "reward" for the thief returning the stolen assets.

 

[JonathanBolesTN]

I wonder if insurance backing would have covered any/all of the losses?

 

[Sky-Knight]

So right now the story just reads like they rewarded his theft/paid a ransom for their funds. If they gave him $500k for finding and pointing out a flaw/exploit I can understand that but this is just stated as "reward" for the thief returning the stolen assets.

Bounty hunting for the digital age...

Asset repossession has always been a very gray area of the law.

 

[nlinecomputers]

It was a digital hostage-taking. They marked the wallet as fraudulent so the thief couldn't transfer funds without each and every transaction marked the same way. So either the hacker just vanishes and the money never is seen again. Or they pay the ass hole and get it back as only a reversal transaction will not be tainted.

Until governments can step in and can invalidate a transaction or some kind of group consciousness (vote by node?), if you don't trust the Feds, to invalidate a transaction there is nothing to stop this.