Hacker Gets Paid to Be Nice: $5M Tokens Returned After ZKsync Hack

by

In an unexpected twist that could only happen in the world of crypto, the ZKsync Association has confirmed the miraculous recovery of $5 million worth of stolen tokens. These tokens, which had been mysteriously lifted during a rather dramatic security incident on April 15, have now returned to their rightful owners, thanks to an offer the hacker simply couldn’t resist: a 10% bounty for their trouble. How kind.

To everyone’s surprise (and probably their relief), the hacker agreed to the terms and returned a whopping 90% of the stolen tokens. On April 23, the ZKsync Security Council saw $5.7 million worth of crypto transferred across three separate transactions. It’s like returning a stolen wallet, but instead of a few crumpled bills, it’s millions in digital tokens.

“We’re pleased to share that the hacker has cooperated and returned the funds within the safe harbor deadline,” ZKsync’s social media account proudly declared, as if this were a normal Tuesday. They also managed to get Matter Labs, the company behind ZKsync, to repost the happy news. Well, you can’t let a good story go unshared, right?

The ZKsync X account went on to reassure the masses that no user funds were affected in the breach. Good news for everyone, especially the people whose crypto wallets remain untouched by this grand heist.

In an exciting turn of events, the hacker made two separate transfers on the ZKsync Era blockchain, totaling $2.47 million worth of ZKsync (ZK) tokens and $1.83 million worth of Ether (ETH) to the ZKsync Security Council’s designated ZKsync Era address. As if that wasn’t generous enough, they sent over 776 ETH (worth nearly $1.4 million) to the Ethereum address of the very same security council. A true act of selflessness. Well, almost.

Now, this all happened on April 23, with the first transfer made at exactly 2:39:57 pm UTC (because who doesn’t love precision?), and the final transfer happening 13 minutes later. Yes, all within the 72-hour window that ZKsync so kindly provided. Talk about a deadline being met!

And, just to keep the excitement going, ZKsync Association has promised a final report that will shed even more light on the whole security incident. Because who doesn’t love a good plot twist? Especially when it involves stolen tokens and unexpected generosity.

How the Hack Happened

The hacker managed to breach ZKsync’s admin account, which is not something you hear every day. This clever individual exploited the airdrop distribution contract’s sweepUnclaimed() function to mint a staggering 111 million unclaimed ZK tokens—worth about $5 million when they first snatched them. It was a heist straight out of a crypto thriller.

As if that wasn’t dramatic enough, the hack occurred right in the middle of ZKsync’s airdrop, which was distributing a massive 17.5% of ZK’s token supply to ecosystem participants. Talk about bad timing for the ZKsync community, but hey, the hacker had their eye on the prize.

The recovered funds, now at nearly $5.7 million, actually surpassed the original $5 million that was stolen. Why? Because the market value of the stolen tokens went up. ZK tokens increased by 16.6%, while Ether rose by 8.8%, according to CoinGecko. It’s almost like the hacker knew what they were doing—or at least got lucky.

Despite the happy ending, the ZK token didn’t exactly rally on the news. In fact, it’s currently down 0.2% over the past 24 hours. So, while the hacker may have returned the loot, the market isn’t exactly throwing a parade.

ZKsync Era, for those of you who are just tuning in, is an Ethereum layer 2 solution that uses zero-knowledge rollups to batch and process transactions off-chain. It currently holds nearly $59 million in total value locked (TVL) on its chain and has over $2 billion in real-world assets on-chain, according to DefiLlama and RWA.xyz. So, yeah, it’s a pretty big deal in the crypto space—hacker drama aside.

Read More

2025-04-24 08:24