The individual who carried out a $200 million exploit on DeFi protocol Euler Finance has issued a public apology through the blockchain. The hacker, known as “Jacob,” has been gradually returning the stolen funds, which currently amount to $177 million. On Monday, the hacker sent an encoded blockchain message promising to return all of the stolen money and explaining that he had delayed doing so out of concern for his own safety. In a follow-up message, the hacker expressed remorse for his actions, stating:
“Jacob here… I messed with others’ money, others’ jobs, others’ lives. I really f****d up. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean all that. I really didn’t f*****g mean all that. Forgive me.”
The hacker used a flash loan attack on March 13 to steal $8.7 million worth of DAI, $34 million of USDC, $19 million of WBTC, and $136 million worth of staked ETH. On-chain intelligence firm Arkham reported that the assets were later gathered solely into ETH and DAI and stored with a holder address worth $205 million in total. However, the hacker began returning some of the stolen ETH to victims around a week ago, and has since returned $100 million worth of ETH to the Euler Finance deployer address. The hacker still holds $18 million in ETH and $13 million in DAI.