On August 11th, 2021, the biggest hack and exploit of the crypto market took place. Poly Network responsible for the cross-chain de-fi platform was hacked and more than $611M have been taken by the hacker. The hack was caused by exploiting a vulnerability between contract calls. This level of hack is the biggest hack in the crypto market. The network announced the details about the hack at 6:36 in the morning according to the GMT time. Assets including $BUSD, $USDC, $USDT, $WBTC, $ETH were taken to the hacker’s wallet.
The HACK and the Addresses
According to the data on Etherscan and bscscan, the exploiter address has been tagged with a heist and exploit. After the exploit was done the hacker tried to move the $USDT to a liquidity pool on a curve.fi but the transaction was rejected. At the same time around $100M have been moved out to the liquidity pool Ellipsis Finance. According to the Slowmist a China based blockchain the hack was preplanned and well organized. The Hack has raised questions on the Security Firm that audited the Networks’ Security.
How Poly Network Responded?
Poly Network has written a letter to the hacker through its social media platforms to kindly return the funds and asked the person to work as a white-hat hacker and bring positivity to the network. (Not sure if the hacker has plans to work that way).
Poly Network contacted different platforms and miners to help them. In its response, the Tether froze the $33M funds in the hacker’s account. Binance also came forward and said that they would help as much as they can but no guarantees can be given at the moment.OKEx has also came forward saying that they are monitoring the flow of coins and they will do their best to manage the situation. Huobi has also taken notice of the situation.
Crypto Hack History and the Future
This isn’t the first time that crypto market has been exploited. $Sparta was also exploited a few months back and huge amounts of funds were stolen. After that the coin was migrated to a new contract address.
Many people have raised speculations regarding the freezing of funds by the Tether, saying that it is morally correct to freeze the funds but goes against the decentralization the community is hoping for. Amidst the regulations and crackdowns on the crypto market this hack certainly isn’t a good news for the whole community as well. This news may be used against the market in the future and may hinder the process for its adoption.
