Balancer Dangles $128M Bounty Deal to Elusive Hacker—Will They Bite?

DeFi protocol Balancer just slid into a hacker's DMs—with a nine-figure offer they hope won't get left on 'read.'

The $128M Standoff

After a brazen exploit drained eight digits from its pools, Balancer isn't calling the FBI—it's calling the attacker's bluff. The team's public bounty proposal dangles white-hat rewards... if funds are returned. Crypto's favorite game of 'catch me if you can' just got spicy.

Bug or Feature?

Another day, another DeFi heist—except this time, the victim's negotiating like a Wall Street hostage negotiator. Maybe next they'll offer stock options? (Oh wait, this is crypto—those don't exist yet.)

Balancer To Hacker: Take Bounty Or Risk Persecution 

On Monday, Balancer suffered a major security breach resulting in the loss of assets worth over $100 million. According to the report by the protocol’s development team, the attack affected the balancer V2 composable stable pools, which were outside the pause window due to their long-standing live on-chain period. 

Bitcoinist reported that the hackers deployed a malicious contract targeting at altering vault calls during these pools’ initialization and eventually dodging security protocols to steal about $70 million in Ethereum, among other assets. 

In an X post on Friday, the Balancer DAO, which serves as the protocol’s governing body, shows its efforts in reaching out to the hacker’s wallet via a blockchain message. The DAO is presenting an opportunity for an amicable settlement without any escalation or legal involvement. 

The DAO said:

We understand this wallet is linked to the exploit of Balancer V2 Composable Stable Pools on Nov 3rd. We are treating this as an opportunity for cooperation and WOULD prefer to resolve this without escalation.

If you are willing to cooperate, reply to this message and begin contact procedures before November 8th, 21:00 UTC. If we do not hear from you by that time, we will assume you are unwilling to help make the liquidity providers whole and will escalate our response.

Notably, the message also includes an offer of a bounty, which allows the hacker to keep a percentage of the loot legally. 

The DAO added: 

We would like to extend you an offer: return the funds to the DAO multisig address in exchange for a bounty. The details of this offer shall be arranged privately. Upon verification that the returned funds meet the criterias, Balancer will not pursue legal action or investigative steps aimed at identifying or prosecuting the owner of the returning wallet that are based solely on the fact of the return.

With no reply by the specified deadline, the governing body intends to employ all technical, on-chain, and legal means to identify the attacker and initiate a persecution. Interestingly, they have also warned that the bounty offer will be given as a reward to any potential informant with relevant information on the attackers.

BAL Price Overview

At the time of writing, BAL, the native token of Balancer, is now trading at $0.8547 following a 4.54% gain in the last day. However, the negative sentiment surrounding the recent hack amid a broader market correction is reflected in its weekly loss of 13.26%. 

Featured image from Securities.io, chart from Tradingview.com