Huobi Global’s cryptocurrency exchange, HTX, has successfully recovered the stolen funds from a hacker incident in late September and has taken the extraordinary step of issuing a 250 Ether (ETH) reward to the responsible individual following the resolution of the issue.
The breach occurred when one of HTX’s hot wallets was drained of 5,000 ETH on September 25, with an approximate value of $8 million at that time. Subsequently, the exchange managed to establish communication with the hacker and claimed to have identified their identity.
In an attempt to resolve the matter without resorting to legal action, HTX made a unique proposition to the hacker. They offered to pay a 5% reward, which equated to approximately $400,000, and committed to refrain from pursuing any legal actions if the hacker returned 95% of the stolen funds before the October 2 deadline.
An update on October 7, shared through an X post, confirmed that Justin Sun, an investor in Huobi Global and an advisor to HTX (also associated with TRON and BTT as a founder and protocol inventor), acknowledged the hacker’s compliance.
Huobi has confirmed that not only did the hacker fulfill their promise by returning all the funds, but the exchange has also chosen to reward them with 250 ETH (valued at approximately $397k) in recognition of their white hat initiative.
In a separate incident during the same week as the HTX hack, the decentralized cross-chain protocol Mixin Network experienced a breach of around $200 million by attackers who exploited a third-party cloud service provider. Mixin Network has offered a $20 million bug bounty as an incentive for the return of the stolen funds, although the chances of recovery remain uncertain. CoinEx also suffered a recent loss of approximately $27 million due to a hack, and a report from Upbit revealed roughly 159,000 exploit attempts on the exchange’s security measures.
This latest development comes in the midst of a surge in hacking incidents within the cryptocurrency space during the third quarter of 2023. According to a recent report by blockchain security platform Immunefi, the quarter witnessed 76 hacks targeting crypto and Web3 projects and companies, a substantial increase from the 30 incidents recorded during the same period in 2022. Another report from CertiK highlights how the crypto sector has lost $1.34 billion to a combination of exploits, scams, and critical vulnerabilities.