Poly Network Hacker Refuses $500K Bounty: Cross Chain Hacking Is Hot, I Am Not Interested In Money

What Happened: The hacker behind the Poly Network exploit has now returned the entire sum of $610 million to the DeFi protocol.

pic.twitter.com/aBRUvanLuL

— Poly Network (@PolyNetwork2) August 12, 2021

Poly Network reported that it had received all the remaining user assets, barring the $33 million in Tether USDT/USD that had been frozen.

The DeFi protocol has also dubbed the anonymous hacker “Mr. White Hat” and even offered him $500,000 as a reward for discovering the vulnerability in its smart contracts.

"We assure you that you will not be accountable for this incident. We hope that you can return all the tokens as soon as possible [...] We will send you the 500k bounty when the remainings are returned except the frozen USDT [sic],” said Poly Network in a message encrypted in a transaction.

The hacker responded with a message of his own, stating: "The poly did offered a bounty, but I have never responded to them. Instead, I will send all of their money back [sic].”

Why It Matters: On Wednesday, the hacker posted a series of Q&As in the form of transaction memos where he broke down the reasons for his actions.

The hacker said he carried out the attack “for fun” and chose Poly Network in particular because “cross chain hacking is hot.”

Read also: A Person Behind $611M DeFi Hack Reveals Their Identity In Careless Mistake

In response to why he chose to return the funds, the hacker claimed that it was always part of the plan.

“I am not very interested in money! I know it hurts when people are attacked, but shouldn’t they learn from those hacks? I announced the returning decision before midnight so people who had faith in me should had a good rest [sic],” he said.