After a cyberattack resulted in a staggering $200 million loss from the decentralized exchange (dex) platform Mixin, the company revealed that its cloud service provider had been compromised. In a bid to recover the stolen funds, Mixin is now extending a $20 million reward to the hacker upon the return of the assets. Through an onchain message on the Ethereum blockchain, Mixin clarified that the pilfered assets were the property of the dex platform’s users.
Mixin Sends Onchain Plea for Asset Recovery
Two days ago, the Mixin Network, also known as Mixin Kernel, suffered a significant breach, resulting in a loss of $200 million. The team pinpointed the network’s cloud service provider as the compromised point and has since collaborated with Google and the Slowmist blockchain security team to delve into the incident. In a strategic move, the Mixin team dispatched an onchain message to the perpetrator, proposing a reward in exchange for the return of the stolen assets.
“Most of our platform assets were users’, and we hope you can refund them,” the onchain message says. “You can keep $20M of the assets as a BUG Bunty Reward for the BUG. Contact us via bug@mixin.one for the reward details.” the Mixin developers added.
Mixin has transmitted its message twice through Ethereum’s onchain messaging system. This incident shadows Coinex’s recent hack, where the platform lost over $54 million in BTC, ETH, and TRX tokens. In a bid to recover the assets, Coinex too drafted an appeal to the hacker after the incident. Interestingly, this tactic has borne fruit for several entities, with hackers occasionally returning a portion or even the entirety of the stolen funds.
Two days ago, Justin Sun revealed that the HTX exchange fell victim to a breach, losing 5,000 ETH in the process. Sun didn’t just stop at offering a bounty for the funds’ return; he went a step further, proposing a position for the hacker as an HTX security consultant. While there have been instances of hackers heeding such pleas, more often than not, they remain unyielding, retaining the stolen crypto assets. Remarkably, Mixin’s overture marks the third such bounty offer in a mere span of three weeks.
What do you think about Mixin’s onchain plea asking the hacker to return the stolen funds? Share your thoughts and opinions about this subject in the comments section below.
