The Euler Finance hacker has returned a small portion of the $197 million worth of crypto stolen in the exploit.
On March 18, the Euler hacker sent 3,000 ETH, worth around $5.4 million at the time, back to the Euler deployer contract.
Overall, Exploiter still holds ~$191m worth of assets:
~81.9k ETH
~43m DAI pic.twitter.com/37gCk0PZHJ— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) March 18, 2023
Blockchain security firm CertiK estimates that the hacker still holds 81,900 ETH and 43 million DAI in the wallet, amounting to around $191 million worth of assets.
The motive behind the transfer remains unclear at the time of writing. The Euler team acknowledged the receipt of these funds with a message encoded in a transaction sent to the hacker.
New message from Euler to the hacker.https://t.co/BkGlN1VdI8
I guess the hacker also returned some of the assets already! pic.twitter.com/iGPmwFAuZF
— Hudson Jameson (@hudsonjameson) March 18, 2023
A few hours prior, Chainalysis found that the Euler hacker sent 100 ETH to a wallet address linked to North Korea’s Lazarus Group – the state-backed cybercrime unit behind the $540 million exploit of the Ronin cross chain bridge last year.
100 ETH stolen in Monday's #Euler Finance hack have moved to an address associated with a previous hack carried out by #NorthKorea-linked actors. This may mean the Euler hack is the work of #DPRK too, or could be misdirection by other hackers. We'll share more details as possible https://t.co/DxvGsc90Z8 pic.twitter.com/5QPphNTyYY
— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) March 17, 2023
However, the general consensus among on-chain analysts was that this transfer was likely an attempt to mislead investigators looking to trace the hacker’s identity.
The Euler hacker moved $1.6 million of the stolen funds to coin mixer Tornado Cash on Thursday, after somewhat uncharacteristically returning 100 ETH to one of the exploit’s victims.
Euler is offering a $1 million bounty for any leads on the hacker’s identity that would lead to his arrest.
“There is little I can say publicly about this, but I want everyone to know that there is a large team of world-class individuals doing all they can night and day,” tweeted Euler Labs CEO Michael Bentley.
