Crypto Market Maker Wintermute Looses $160M in a Hack

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Wintermute’s founder and the chief executive used Twitter to announce a $160 million hack.

Wintermute, a global crypto market maker established in 2017, has faced a $160 million hack on its DeFi operations.

According to the Twitter thread of Wintermute founder and chief executive Evgeny Gaevoy, 90 assets in the company’s portfolio were hacked. Gaevory highlighted that out of the hacked assets, two were drained for $1 million, while none of them were exploited for more than $2.5 million.

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However, it is unclear whether or not the statements about drained assets are truthful. Based on the data shared on Etherscan, stolen assets were transferred to “Wintermute exploiter”. For example, the hacker stole USD Coin (USDC) worth around $62 million and Tether USD (USDT) for around $30 million.

The tweets noted that over-the-counter and centralized finance operations were not affected.

Evgeny Gaevory used his Twitter to assure the platform’s users, lenders, and investors that user funds are safe. Moreover, he added that the company is “solvent with twice over that amount in equity left.”

Following the announcement, one Twitter user called ZachXBT carried out their own investigation and revealed the hacker’s wallet address, which contains $47.8 million. The remaining $114.3 million are held in the stablecoin exchange Curve Protocol.

The Twitter user also revealed that after the hack, the stolen assets were transferred to liquidity pool 3pool.

At the end of his Twitter thread, chief executive Evgeny Gaevory emphasized that the company is keen on treating the attacker as a white hat.

Treating malicious actors as white hackers is a common technique used to recover at least a part of funds by offering bounties or other perks.

Back in August, a cross-chain bridge protocol, Nomad, experienced one of the biggest hacks in crypto history, losing $190,7 million. The company took action and offered a 10% bounty program for those hackers who will return 90% of their stolen funds. According to the data shared on September 13th, Nomad recovered $36 million.