In the incident that occurred in the early days of May, it was revealed that a crypto whale had nearly $70 million worth of cryptocurrency stolen. Following this incident, new developments related to the thief emerged, including statements about small refunds and even exchanges of messages. A significant development related to the issue occurred in the past few hours. An incredible move was made by the cryptocurrency pirate.
The Whale’s Funds Were Returned
Looking at on-chain data, the computer hacker who managed to steal $70 million worth of cryptocurrency from a crypto whale has almost completely returned all the funds obtained. In the early days of this month, the attack drew all attention by successfully scamming a whale using a similar address usage method.
This method involves sending a small amount of cryptocurrency to someone using an address that resembles the victim’s wallet. The tactic is performed to trick the victim into copying the address from which the hacker made the transfer from their transaction history and to carry out the crypto transaction to this address.
According to a statement by blockchain security firm CertiK, the scammer copied an address located here by being deceived by a 0.05 Ethereum (ETH) transfer, and the whale sent 1,155 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) worth $69.3 million to the wrong address. It was also known that the WBTCs were later exchanged by the hacker for 23,000 ETH.
However, looking at the conversations that emerged on Etherscan’s messaging service, it seems that the computer hacker had to send the crypto assets back to the whale.
According to information shared by blockchain tracking firm Arkham, it appears that almost all of the funds operated by the computer hacker were rapidly sent back over the last few days. Arkham’s data shows that the wallet where all the transfers were made contains 22,960 ETH worth $66.33 million.
What is more interesting is that after this theft incident, the computer hacker made no effort to hide the stolen funds through crypto mixers or further trading.
How Much is 1 Ethereum?
As of the writing of this article, Ethereum was trading at $2,942 after a 0.42% increase in the last 24 hours. Ethereum’s market cap was trying to hold above $353 billion during this period.
Despite the slight increase in price, the trading volume had reached $12.8 billion after a 119% increase in the last 24 hours. Analysts also stated that if ETH fails to reach $3,100, the decline could become much steeper.