It has been discovered that the hacker behind the attack on the decentralized exchange (DEX) KyberSwap has moved millions of crypto assets from one blockchain network to another. On February 26th, blockchain analytics firm PeckShield published the wallet movements of the KyberSwap attacker. According to blockchain data, the hacker bridged approximately $2.5 million worth of 798.8 Ethereum from Arbitrum to the Ethereum network.
Hacker’s Noteworthy Move
In addition to the $2.5 million, the hacker also moved nearly a million dollars in stablecoins. A wallet owned by the hacker transferred $826,500 worth of Dai stablecoin to another wallet. The KyberSwap attack was one of the biggest hack attacks of 2023. On November 23rd, DEX warned its community about a security incident and advised its users to withdraw their funds. Initially, it was discovered that about $46 million worth of crypto assets were taken during the attack. However, it was later revealed that the total amount lost reached nearly $49 million.
The hacker also left a message on-chain to the KyberSwap team on the day of the attack, stating that negotiations would begin when everything was completely quiet. In response, the KyberSwap team offered the attacker a reward of $4.6 million for the return of 90% of the stolen funds.
However, when the hacker began to express dissatisfaction with KyberSwap’s approach, the reward negotiations took a turn for the worse. On November 29th, the hacker published a message on-chain, threatening to delay negotiations even further if the KyberSwap team continued with legal action threats and maintained what the hacker called an unfriendly approach.
What Happened After the Hack Attack?
In the end, the hacker did the unexpected and demanded full control over the KyberSwap company and all its assets. The hacker also demanded temporary full authority and ownership over KyberDAO, the governance mechanism for all documents related to Kyber. The hacker gave the company until December 10, 2023, to decide before the deal fell through.
Following the hacker’s demands, the KyberSwap team decided to initiate treasury grants for the victims of the hack. On December 2, 2023, the team announced it would provide a grant to those who lost funds in the attack and could not recover them. The hack also significantly impacted the company, and a month after the attack, KyberSwap laid off half of its workforce.
