Hacker steals $200,000 through Multichain bug, offers to return 80% to victim

Quick Take

• A bug in the Multichain protocol (that affects users who haven’t revoked permissions) has been exploited for $1.5 million.
• One hacker stole $200,000 but is offering to return most of the funds back to the original owner.

The ongoing exploitation of the cross-chain protocol Multichain has now totaled $3 million, according to ZenGo co-founder Tal Be'ery.

A bug in the protocol is being exploited by multiple blockchain wallets, with either one hacker or many behind the attacks.

One of the hackers, who has stolen $200,000 through this bug, has offered some remorse. They claim to be a whitehat hacker and have offered to return 80% of the funds that they took.

This hacker said in a blockchain transaction, "whitehat here, send me the tx you lost your weth, I give 80% back. The rest is the tips for me saving your money." Multichain has since replied to the hacker, hoping that they will return the funds to a blockchain address that they specified in the message.

It is unknown whether this particular hacker was behind any of the other thefts. When asked if this hacker also owned the wallet that stole $1.43 million through this exploit, Multichain told The Block that it was possible. Be'ery said, "Cannot really know."