Popular cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has decided to offer up to $400 million worth of bitcoin for the return of the bitcoin stolen from its wallets in 2016. At the time, the hackers managed to steal 119,755 BTC over 2,072 unauthorized transactions.

Options issuance platform Opyn has seemingly seen an outside actor or actors exploit its ETH put options contracts to steal 371,000 USDC tokens from the platform, and the team’s investigation is still ongoing.

The Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund, launched in June 2020, has announced three new grant recipients, shortly after Square Crypto announced a new grant.

Top stories in the Crypto Roundup today:

• Bitfinex Offers Up to $400 Million For Return of Bitcoin Stolen in 2016
• Hackers Steal 371,000 USDC from Opyn Using ETH Put Options Exploit
• Human Rights Foundation, Square Crypto Announced New Bitcoin Development Grants

At the time of writing, bitcoin (BTC) is trading at $11,302.95 (0.48%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $3.60 bn. As for ether (ETH), it is trading at $391.12 (-0.11%) with a daily Top Tier volume of $2.25 bn. The MVIS CryptoCompare Digital Assets 10 Index is currently tracking at 4,440.57 (0.27%).

Bitfinex Offers Up to $400 Million For Return of Bitcoin Stolen in 2016

Popular cryptocurrency exchange Bitfinex has decided to offer up to $400 million worth of bitcoin for the return of the bitcoin stolen from its wallets in 2016. At the time, the hackers managed to steal 119,755 BTC over 2,072 unauthorized transactions.

While back then the stolen BTC was worth roughly $72 million, the funds are now worth over $1.34 billion. In a bid to get the security incident behind its back, Bitfinex is now offering 5% of the total property recovered to anyone who connects them with the hackers, and 25% of the property recovered to the hackers themselves. The announcement reads:

“Bitfinex is offering a reward to any persons that connect us with hackers responsible for the unauthorized transfer of almost 120,000 bitcoins from the exchange in August 2016. As part of the same initiative, Bitfinex is also offering a reward to the hackers themselves for the return of the stolen property.”

To confirms their identities the hackers will have to move one satoshi to a wallet address specified by Bitfinex, but the process will be done “safely, thereby protecting the identities of all parties.” Bitfinex has been working with authorities to recover the funds, and in February 2019 27.66 BTC stolen in the hack were recovered, converted to USD, and distributed to RRT token holders.

Bitfinex’s offer comes at a time in which the hackers are proving they’re still active. In the last few days, they moved a total of $51 million worth of bitcoin stolen from Bitfinex.

Hackers Steal 371,000 USDC from Opyn Using ETH Put Options Exploit

Options issuance platform Opyn has seemingly seen an outside actor or actors exploit its ETH put options contracts to steal 371,000 USDC tokens from the platform, and the team’s investigation is still ongoing.

The exploit saw traders use flash loans – loans taken and repaid in a single transaction – to buy Ethereum Put oTokens (oETH) from decentralized exchange Uniswap, and chose to use the USDC stablecoin as collateral.

This resulted in a double-transfer, which effectively “stole” the collateral. In a blog post acknowledging the exploit, Opyn’s team detailed it prevented further losses:

"At the time of this post, we’ve found 371,260 USDC that has been stolen from these contracts, but this amount may change as our investigation continues. 439,170 USDC from outstanding vaults was successfully recovered by a white hat hack that the Opyn team conducted on the Convexity Protocol to mitigate further loss."

During its investigation, Opyn removed liquidity from Uniswap and clarified that to ensure liquidity for ensuring oToken holders they are offering the purchase of all ETH Put oTokens that “were outstanding at the time of the exploit for 20% above market price on Deribit."

Human Rights Foundation, Square Crypto Announced New Bitcoin Development Grants

The Human Rights Foundation’s Bitcoin Development Fund, launched in June 2020, has announced three new grant recipients, shortly after Square Crypto announced Lloyd Fournier was going to be sponsored by the firm to keep developing BTC.

Fournier’s grant proposal reveals he will be experimenting with payment channels and the Lightning Network, while exploring options comparable to the oracles popularized in decentralized finance systems.

The Human Rights Foundation issued grants to Evan Kaloudis, another Lightning Developer, for his work on the iOS and Android app Zeus, and to Openoms, the creator of Joinbox, which makes it easier for bitcoiners to transact in a relatively private and decentralized way using a Raspberry Pi.

Fontaine, the creator of Fully Noded, also received a grant from the Human Rights Foundation to keep on working on his Tor-friendly iOS app that uses a regular bitcoin node on a mobile device. Each Human Rights Foundation grant is of 1 BTC.

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