600 Million Dollar Cryptocurrency Hack: What We Know So Far

600 Million Dollar Cryptocurrency Hack: What We Know So Far

Yesterday, August 10th 2021, the Poly network was hacked for a whopping 600 million dollars. This news made the front page of every cryptocurrency reporting site, as this was undoubtedly the largest Defi hack in history – and quite possibly – the largest hack in crypto history. The story, however, does not end there. Today, the hacker(s) returned 260 million dollars’ worth of stolen assets; approximately half of what this digital thief – or possibly thieves – initially got away with. In this article, we will discuss the Poly heist; a piece of cryptocurrency history, which is unfolding right before our eyes.

Poly Network is built to implement interoperability between multiple chains to build the next generation internet infrastructure. Essentially, Poly interconnects smart contract enabled blockchains, with a minimal amount of effort. In fact, connecting two blockchains using the Poly network only requires the implementation of two smart contracts. The Poly Network has already integrated Bitcoin, Ethereum, Neo, Ontology, Elrond, Ziliqa, Binance Smart Chain, Switcheo and Huobi ECO Chain.

As Poly is a network that allows users to send transactions across blockchains, its most vulnerable point is the bridge between different networks. This is the point where the Poly network was attacked, taking 600 million dollars – not from an exchange or entity – but from individuals within the crypto community. Poly released this statement on Twitter, shortly after the attack:

Polly responded quickly to this attack by releasing another statement on Twitter, which provided an email address for the hacker(s) to respond to the Twitter message goes as follows:

Today, the hacker(s) returned 260 million dollars’ worth of assets to the Poly team. This may very well be due to the number of individuals who had been personally robbed by the hacker(s). A large number of the individuals who suffered from this hack, posted numerous comments on twitter and other social media outlets, urging the hacker to return the funds or – at the least – personally airdrop some of the stolen funds into private wallets. Many of the people who attempted to contact the hacker(s) are reliant on cryptocurrency for their day to day lives.

Whether the hacker(s) will return the total amount of assets to their rightful owners or not, is still speculative. The fact that the hacker(s) returned any amount of the stolen assets – let alone nearly half of them – is a good sign for the large number of people, who lost bits and pieces of their livelihood to a hacker or a group of hackers that have chosen to play hardworking peoples lives, as if it were a game.

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