Hackers behind one of the biggest ever cryptocurrency heists have returned more than a third of about $600 million in digital coins they stole, blockchain researchers said on Wednesday. Poly Network, a decentralised finance platform that facilitates peer-to-peer transactions, announced the hack on Twitter, posting details of digital wallets to which the tokens were sent.

The value of the coins in the wallets was just over $600 million at the time of the announcement, according to blockchain analysts. Poly Network later urged the hackers to return the stolen funds to several of its digital addresses, saying it planned to take legal action. Blockchain forensics company Chainalysis said roughly $260.97 million worth of cryptocurrency was returned in a range of coins.

The hackers said they perpetrated the heist “for fun” and wanted to “expose the vulnerability” before others could exploit it, according to digital messages shared by blockchain analyst firm Elliptic and Chainalysis. The identity of the hackers was unknown, including whether a group or an individual was responsible.

Reuters could not verify the authenticity of the messages. An executive from cryptocurrency firm Tether said on Twitter the company had frozen $33 million connected with the hack, and top management at large crypto exchanges told Poly Network they would also try to help.

Tom Robinson, Elliptic’s co-founder, said the extraordinary decision to return the money could have been prompted by the headaches of laundering stolen crypto on such a scale.

News Source : Reuters