The Return of Stolen Funds: GMX Hacker Makes Amends
The recent cyber attacker who managed to loot millions from GMX’s V1 GLP pool has surprisingly taken a new turn of events, as the stolen funds are now being returned to the protocol.
PeckShield Alert flagged on-chain movements indicating that the GMX hacker has already returned a staggering $37.5 million worth of stolen assets to the protocol. These returns were made through various transfers of ETH and FRAX around 8:00 AM UTC, amounting to nearly 90% of the $42 million drained just a couple of days ago in the initial exploit.
Following GMX’s public offer of a 10% bounty for the safe return of funds, along with a 48-hour deadline and a promise not to pursue legal action, the hacker responded with an on-chain message stating, “Ok, funds will be returned later,” before proceeding with the fund transfers.
GMX’s native token, GMX, saw a 16% increase in value in response to these developments, partially recovering from the 28% drop it experienced immediately after the exploit. While GMX has not yet officially acknowledged the receipt of the returned funds, the protocol did express gratitude to the hacker on-chain, stating, “Thank you, we greatly appreciate this.”
Despite the significant return of funds, it remains uncertain whether the attacker plans to return the remaining $4.5 million from the exploit. This leaves a lingering question mark over the ultimate outcome of the situation.
The GMX hack stands out as one of the most substantial industry exploits thus far this year, joining the ranks of other high-profile victims such as Bybit, which fell victim to a $1.4 billion hack orchestrated by the notorious North Korean hacker group Lazarus, and Cetus Protocol, which suffered a loss of $223 million.
Similar to GMX, Bybit also offered a 10% bounty for the recovery of the stolen funds. However, it has yet to see any progress in reclaiming the assets.