Cryptocurrency exchange Poloniex was the target of a hack that resulted in the theft of nearly $125 million. Exchange CEO Justin Sun has invited the hacker to return the stolen funds in return for a 5% bounty. He also promises that the stolen funds will be reimbursed and Poloniex will be relaunched.
Poloniex exchange hacked but Justin Sun reassures
Players in the crypto ecosystem continue to be the target of various computer attacks. The CEX (Centralized Exchange) of cryptocurrencies Poloniex was the victim of a hack on November 10, 2023. The exchange has announced the deactivation of its portfolio for maintenance before its CEO confirms the hack.
While announcing investigations, Justin Sun reassured that Poloniex maintains its financial health and will reimburse stolen funds.
Neither the exchange nor its CEO Justin Sun have not communicated the amount stolen by the hacker. However, suspicious exits indicate that the incident affected a significant sum. According to the analyst PeckShield initial analysis of the addresses receiving the outflows suggests that $125 million was stolen from the ETH, TRX and BTC chains. The analysis firm Arkham Intelligence reached similar conclusions about the amount stolen according to our colleague.
This amount is certainly significant, but not enough to panic the CEO of Poloniex.
Indeed, he made known that the losses are within manageable limits, since some of the assets associated with the hacker’s addresses have been frozen. He also believes that the CEX’s operating revenues can cover the losses incurred.
While apologizing to users, Justin Sun promised to boost deposits and withdrawals on Poloniex in the next few days with 100% security.
Justin Sun ready to reward hacker with 5% of stolen funds
Immediately after the attack, the exchange Poloniex has taken steps to identify the hacker and recover the stolen funds. In this context, Justin Sun a announced the offer of a 5% bonus to the hacker of Poloniex on condition that he returns the stolen funds. The hacker has 7 days to comply, failing which the forces of law and order will be called in, he threatens:
Will the hacker from Poloniex accept this offer? It’s hard to say for sure. What is certain is that he has transferred over $2.5 million of $GLM to the token contract address causing their burn. Whether this was done inadvertently or deliberately is unclear at this time.
Justin Sun is a regular win-win deals with hackers. Very recently, its other exchange HTX paid 250 Ethereum (ETH) to a hacker for recover the 95% of the funds he had stolen. The web3 Stars Arena platform recently did the same recovering 90% of the stolen funds in the process.
And what do you think the outcome of this story will be?
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