March was an incredible month of drama in the cryptocurrency market, as news broke of wrongdoers siphoning over $211 million worth of digital assets in just one month alone. The biggest theft by far was the Euler Finance exploit that made headlines worldwide. This hack resulted in almost $200 million worth of digital assets being stolen, accounting for over 93% of the total stash.
The hacker behind the exploit, referred to only as Jacob, used a flash loan attack to exploit the decentralized finance (DeFi) platform. Initially, the entity behind the project offered Jacob to keep 10 percent of the loot if they returned the remaining funds, but after the deadline passed, the protocol publicly announced a $1 million reward for information leading to the hacker’s arrest and the return of all funds.
Despite the reward, Jacob seemed determined to keep the funds. On March 16, the hacker transferred 1,000 Ether – worth around $1.8 million at the time – to the crypto mixer Tornado Cash. However, they soon had a change of heart, sending back over $100 million worth of ETH to the protocol and apologizing for their crime.
Jacob’s move comes as blockchain Security Company, PeckShield, recognized 26 different cryptourrency exploits that occurred in March – costing investors $211.5 million. Decentralized Finance project SafeMoon came in second with $8.7 million in losses, while $5.2 million departed from ParaSpace. Also hit were General Bytes ATM ($1.7 million), Tender.fi ($1.58 million), and Swerve Finance ($1.3 million).
The involvement of North Korean state-sponsored Lazarus hacking group in the Euler Finance attack can’t be ruled out either, according to blockchain analysis firm Chainalysis. The firm reported that some of the ETH stolen was sent to a wallet linked to the Axie Infinity Ronin bridge hack, which Lazarus is believed to have conducted.
Well, whatever the case may be, it’s clear that Jacob’s exploits stole over $200 million in the biggest DeFi heist story of the year. It will be interesting to see if Jacob takes the on-chain ultimatum seriously and returns the remaining funds, but, until then, it looks like investors have to wait and see.
