Curve Finance exploiter returns $12.7 million of stolen funds

Following the recent Curve Finance exploit, the perpetrator has made a surprising move by returning a significant portion of the stolen assets to the protocol.

Reports indicate that the exploiter has sent around $12.7 million worth of 4,820 Alchemix Ethereum (alETH) and 2,258 Ethereum (ETH) to the Alchemix Finance platform.

Hacker returns $12.7 million worth of alETH

The events follow Curve’s request to the hacker on Aug. 3 to return the funds, after which the hacker requested that they confirm the address.

The process of returning the funds occurred in three transactions. The first one involved a test transaction of 1 alETH. Subsequently, a batch of 1,000 alETH, valued at $1.7 million, was returned around 9:00 a.m. ET. Following this, another 3,819 alETH, worth $6.7 million, was sent back just minutes later.

After returning the alETH, the hacker returned 2,258 ETH, valued at $4.2 million, to an Alchemix Finance wallet, bringing the total returned funds to approximately $12.7 million.

The Curve Finance exploiter also included a message in one of the transactions, shedding light on their motivation for the surprising move.

The message read:

“I saw some ridiculous views, so I want to clarify that I’m refunding you not because you can find me, it’s because I don’t want to ruin your project, maybe it’s a lot of money for a lot of people, but not for me, I’m smarter than all of you.”

Curve Finance experiences $24 million exploit

Alchemix Finance, the beneficiary of the returned funds, operates as a loan-based DeFi protocol that uses Curve pools.

The news comes in the aftermath of Curve Finance experiencing a $24 million exploit on July 30, attributed to a Vyper attack.

Following the events, Curve Finance’s founder, Michael Egorov, engaged in over-the-counter transactions involving more than 106 million CRV tokens, amounting to $42 million, to mitigate the potential for liquidation risk.