Let us Come to an Agreement; Euler Finance Hacker Says

The jail threat attached to the demand made by Euler Finance seems to have worked as the flash loan hacker has mentioned plans to return what he stole from what is regarded as the biggest DeFi hack in 2023. 

The hacker has now responded to the Ethereum-based lending protocol and has shown interest in reaching an agreement with the firm. More so, screenshots shared by the blockchain analytic platform Certik show that both entities have been in communication.

Based on the on-chain message sent to the Euler Finance team, the hacker said “We want to make this easy on all those affected. No intention of keeping what is not ours. Setting up secure communication. Let us come to an agreement.” In response, Euler Finance also sent an on-chain message agreeing to talk “in private” 

“Message received. Let’s talk in private on blockscan via the Euler Deployer address and one of your EOAs, via signed messages over email at contact@euler.foundation, or any other channel of your choice. Reply with your preference.”

Euler Finance Gives Hacker Utimatum

After the Euler Finance platform was backed on March 13th and almost $200 million was carried away with, the ETH lending protocol gave the hacker a 24-hour ultimatum to return 90% while he kept 10% as his bounty reward. Failure to return the manipulated percentage will activate the second option of launching a $1 million reward for anyone who offers information that could lead to the arrest of the bad actor.

Much to the disappointment of the DeF protocol, the hacker returned $5.4 million which is equivalent to 3000 Ether, to the Euler Finance deployed wallet address. The refund made by the hacker at that time represents only about 3% of the entire fund siphoned from Euler Finance. It was done in three different transactions with 1000 ETH sent in each one.

From the pronoun used by the hacker “we”, it seems that the attack may have involved more than one person, although their identities have not yet been demystified. This strategy of exploiting protocols and later regarding it as a whitehat hack to claim bounty reward is fast becoming a trend. Mango Market’s Avraham Eisenberg made a similar claim.