Kronos Research Pledges 10% Bounty for Crypto Hacker's Identity

• Kronos Research Invites Discussion with Hacker who Swiped $25 Million
• Unwanted Access to API Keys
• Firm Stands Strong despite Significant Losses
• On-chain Negotiations: A Growing Trend
• Previous Hacker Engagements

Kronos Research Invites Discussion with Hacker who Swiped $25 Million

Taipei's prominent cryptocurrency trading and investment firm, Kronos Research, has initiated talks with the cyber criminal who stole $25 million from its treasury in the early days of this month. In a surprising move, Kronos proposed a deal via a message to the hacker: return 90% of the illicitly obtained funds and the incident will be forgotten. This offer was made visible through Etherscan.

Unwanted Access to API Keys

The Taiwanese trading and venture capital firm made the distressing announcement last week about a security breach. It was reported that an unauthorized individual managed to gain access to the firm's API keys. Onchain analysts, ZachXBT, and Lookonchain confirmed this and revealed that the hacker absconded with $25 million, a large portion of which was in stablecoins.

Firm Stands Strong despite Significant Losses

Kronos later confirmed that the actual losses amounted to approximately $26 million in cryptocurrency assets. Despite the extensive financial blow, the firm reassured that it remains in a stable position. Any losses incurred will be compensated internally and it assured that none of its partners will be impacted by the incident.

On-chain Negotiations: A Growing Trend

The practice of on-chain dialogues between hackers and their victims appears to be gaining momentum. A striking example of this trend was observed recently when a hacker exploited KyberSwap and agreed to commence discussions once they were fully rested. This was stated during one of the transactions that siphoned funds from the decentralized exchange. The KyberSwap platform responded by offering the offending party a 10% bounty for the recovery of the stolen funds.

Previous Hacker Engagements

In a similar case in August, Curve Finance extended a 10% bounty to hackers in return for the stolen cryptocurrency, and this proposition was also conducted via transaction signing. A staggering amount of $1.2 billion has been unlawfully acquired from Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols this year, as per the data from DeFiLlama.

Edited by Jonathan Stoker