A cryptocurrency project was able to return hundreds of millions stolen by a hacker a year ago — due to his own mistake

The Web3 infrastructure company Jump Crypto and the decentralized finance platform Oasis. app have conducted a «counter-exploit» against the hacker that previously cracked the Wormhole protocol. The companies managed to recover $ 225 million worth of digital assets and transfer them to a secure wallet.

The attack on the Wormhole bridge occurred in February 2022 and resulted in the theft of about $ 321 million worth of Wrapped ETH (wETH) due to a vulnerability in the bridge protocol.

Since then, the hacker has been moving the stolen funds through various Ethereum-based decentralized applications (dApps), including Oasis on January 23, where he opened a Wrapped Staked ETH (wstETH) vault and a Rocket Pool ETH (rETH) vault on February 11.

In a blog post on February 24, the Oasis. app team confirmed that a counter-exploit had taken place, noting that it had «received an order from the High Court of England and Wales» to seize certain assets associated with «the address responsible for the Wormhole exploit.»

The transaction history of both vaults shows that 120,695 wsETH and 3,213 rETH were moved by Oasis on February 21 and deposited into wallets controlled by Jump Crypto.