The hacker who drained $9 million in assets from Safemoon’s liquidity pool has returned $7.2 million of the funds. A report from Peckshield crypto analytics firm revealed the exploiter returned the funds in two consecutive transactions to the protocol’s treasury wallet.

On April 19, Safemoon confirmed the fund return, noting the hacker first performed a 100 BNB test transaction before returning the rest. Also, the DeFi protocol agreed to let the hacker keep 20% of the stolen $9 million.

Safemoon Hacker Returns 80% of Stolen Funs, Keeps 20% as a Bounty

Recall the DeFi protocol Safemoon witnessed hit an attack on March 28 that saw $9 million swept off its liquidity pool. The hack attack, which blockchain security experts called a public burn bug, triggered SFM token burns, leading to a price increase. This vulnerability allowed the hacker to drain approximately $9 million in funds from the protocol’s liquidity pool.

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The protocol had confirmed the attack on March 29, assuring its community about its efforts to rectify the situation. Safemoon also said it would update the community regarding the fund’s recovery.

Since the exploit in March, Safemoon has been working to recover the funds and later confirmed the hacker agreed to return them. Safemoon noted the attacker would return 80% and keep 20% of the funds for bounty. That was after the community members voiced dissatisfaction with the lack of updates. 

According to details, the hack exploiter returned the funds in two transactions on April 20. He sent the first 10,000 BNB units worth around $3.4 million and another 11,804 BNB of $3.8 million to Safemoon’s treasury wallet.

Safemoon (SFM) Token Price Soars Amid News Of Fund Recovery

Safemoon received heavy backlash from the community after the incident. Some accused the protocol of rewarding criminal acts and overlooking the matter. These backlashes affected SFM’s market sentiment, pushing the token price down by nearly 12% to $0.00021. However, SFM quickly recovered and started increasing again. 

As of yesterday, April 19, the SFM token’s price surged by 18.2%, closing at $0.00022026. At press time, SFM price has surged 13% over the past 24 hours and trades at $0.000205. This price movement suggests the news of stolen fund recovery positively impacted SFM token market sentiment. 

Massive Funds Lost to Hack Exploits in Q1 2023, Says Certik

Similar attacks that led to massive loss of funds have been prevalent in the crypto ecosystem in recent years. According to Certik’s quarterly report, the BNB chain witnessed the most hack incidents in Q1 of 2023, while Ethereum lost the highest.

In Q1 alone, crypto protocols lost over $320 million to exploitations, Certik’s quarterly report showed. Although the losses were considerably lesser than Q1 2022’s figures, it is still significant. According to Certik’s report, the losses may link to recent events in the traditional finance sector, like the Silicon Valley Bank collapse. 

Certik noted that BNB Chain recorded 139 hack incidents while Ethereum Chain lost $221 million in Q1 2023. Most of these losses occurred via flash loans or oracle manipulation exploits. Although protocols lost large chunks of funds, an enormous amount has been recovered, including Safemoon’s $7.2 million fund recovery.