Crypto: Crema Hacker Returns $8M, Keeps $1.6M In Deal With Protocol

Crema hacker who took advantage of Crema Finance’s liquidity protocol on July 2 had to refund the majority of the money. But he was permitted to retain $1.6 million as a white hat bounty.

iexclusivenews reports that the bounty, 45,455 Solana (SOL), is generously valued at 16.7% of the initial $9.6 million Crema loss. Which compelled the protocol to halt operations.

This online news outlet understands that using the hacker’s Discord account and the address’s initial gas source. Crema’s team started an investigation to find the hacker.

The team revealed that they had been in negotiations with the hacker just when it appeared they may have discovered the hidden identity. Meanwhile, the hacker returned 6,064 ETH and 23,967 SOL on Wednesday, totaling around $8 million.

In a series of transactions on the Ethereum and Solana networks, the hacker repaid the money.

On each network, the first transaction was a test with a small number of coins. And the subsequent transaction was worth the majority of the money transmitted.

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What You Need To Know

Although the finances have been acquired, users of Crema and the team may now rest easy knowing that there is more work to be done.

Before the agreement was struck, the team said on Tuesday that it had submitted a fresh code for auditing to make sure the same issue did not occur again.

👉After a long negotiation, the hacker agreed to take 45455 SOL as the white hat bounty. Now we have confirmed the receipt of 6064 ETH + 23967.9 SOL in four transactions indicated below. A follow-up compensation plan will be released in 48h.

— CremaFinance (@Crema_Finance) July 6, 2022

The Crema team described what happened in a Sunday thread on Twitter, but the community is still waiting for an official post-mortem on the attack.

In order to increase liquidity in a Crema pool, the attacker obtained a flash loan using the Solend decentralized finance (DeFi) lending protocol.

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The hacker then created fake pricing information to appear as though they were entitled to a far larger prize than they actually were.

As a result, they were able to withdraw “a significant fee amount” from the pool, totaling around $9.6 million. To which they added the flash loan.

The team said that after the audit is through, the Crema protocol will be operational once more.

By July 8, the group will also release a compensation scheme for impacted users.

Given the tragedy that befell the Horizon Bridge in Harmony last month, Crema is fortunate to have collected as much money as it did.

From Harmony’s token bridge, a hacker stole $100 million in cryptocurrency, and they declined the $1 million white hat reward to return the money.