Alchemix and JPEG’d Recoup Losses After Stolen Funds Returned

A crypto wallet labeled “Alchemix/CurveFinance Exploiter” has returned funds that were stolen from Alchemex earlier in the week. The NFT staking platform JPEG’d has also seen the return of stolen assets.

The moves add an unexpected twist to the events of the past week, during which the DeFi space has been rattled by a string of cyber thefts that exploited a Curve Finance vulnerability.

Hacker Begins Return of $61 Million in Stolen Crypto

Earlier in the week Alchemix, a self-repaying loan platform, was hacked for around $61 million worth of crypto. The attack exploited a vulnerability in several Curve Finance pools which has been felt across the DeFi landscape.

However, on Friday, Alchemix said that the hacker returned 4,819 alETH and 2259 ETH worth nearly $13 million. 

In a statement, the company thanked the thief for returning the stolen assets. It added that Alchemix looks forward forward to continued collaboration and the return of the remaining funds.

Alongside Curve Finance and another victim Metronome, Alchemix has previously offered to reward 10% of the stolen funds in exchange for their return.

Curve Finance Exploiter Taunts: “I’m Smarter Than All of You”

At present, Alchmix has not elaborated on its supposed collaboration with the hacker. However, a series of Ether transactions were used to convey messages between the involved parties. 

In a message attached to an Ether transaction on Friday, the exploiter gloated: “I’m refunding you not because you can find me, it’s because I don’t want to ruin your project, maybe it’s a lot of money for a lot of people, but not for me, I’m smarter than all of you.”

JPEG’d Rewards 10% Bounty for Return of Stolen Funds

Although Alchemix has not publicized details of any agreement, another victim of the Curve exploit has confirmed the reward of a 10% bounty in exchange for the return of stolen assets.

After losing $11.6 million of crypto in the Curve hack, the NFT-staking platform JPEG’d opted to collaborate with its attacker. On Friday evening, the JPEG’d team publicly asserted that they would not attempt to identify the person behind the hack or pursue legal action against them.

The wallet holding the stolen funds has been rewarded with a 10% “white hat bounty” of 610.0 ETH. It isn’t known whether the wallet is controlled by the same person behind the Alchemix/CurveFinance Exploiter address. The relationship between the two attacks is also unknown.

In the grand scheme of things, many will agree that roughly a million dollars worth of crypto is a price worth paying to recover 90% of losses. What’s more, the JPEG token appears to have been buoyed by news of the refund.

Last Sunday (Jul 30.), JPEG plummeted in value after the platform reported the first losses from the Curve exploit. As of Saturday morning, however, the token had recovered to its pre-hack value.