Nomad Bridge offers 10% bounty to recover stolen funds, whitehat hackers have returned $22M so far

Nomad Bridge has announced a 10% bounty for hackers who return at least 90 % of the total funds in their custody. In response, Whitehat hackers have returned $22 million as of August 5.

The bridge was drained of $190.7 million on August 1 after a hacker stole 100 wBTC worth $2.3 million. The exploit was copied by hundreds of addresses which saw them receive a share of the hack.

According to the update, whitehat hackers who return up to 90% of the funds to the official recovery address will not be subjected to any legal action.

Update: Nomad Bridge Hack Bounty

(see below for details)

Please send the funds to the official Nomad recovery wallet address on Ethereum: 0x94A84433101A10aEda762968f6995c574D1bF154 https://t.co/8gO1xVl5IC pic.twitter.com/8D7SvbDQlO

— Nomad (⤭⛓🏛) (@nomadxyz_) August 4, 2022

Whitehat Hackers coming forward

In the wake of the exploit, some ethical friends of Nomad came up to identify as being a part of the exploit and promised to return the funds.

im returning this money, fbi pls calm down. no i didnt plan to steal it and yes i know this address is doxed

🍉 🍉 🍉.eth
Nomad

— 🍉🍉🍉.eth (@SpaceWigger) August 2, 2022

In a follow-up tweet from Nomad on August 4, it appreciated some addresses that contributed to returning $16.6m to its recovery address.

Thank you to
– 🍉🍉🍉.eth ($4m)
– 0xE3F40743cc18fd45D475fAe149ce3ECC40aF68c3 ($3.4m)
– darkfi.eth ($1.9m)
– returner-of-beans.eth ($1m)
– anime.eth ($900k)
for returning a total of $11.2m to our recovery address!

We’ve recovered a total of $16.6m so far.

— Nomad (⤭⛓🏛) (@nomadxyz_) August 4, 2022

On August 5, blockchain security firm PeckShield confirmed that $22 million has been recovered. The data showed that 11.6% of the stolen funds have been recovered, while 50% of the amount has not moved since the hack.

Stablecoins make a large portion of the returned assets, with $6 million USDC, $2.88 million DAI, $2.81 million QCT, $2.1 million wBTC, and $2 million USDT.

#PeckShieldAlert As of today (August 5, 2022), ～11.6% ($22m) of stolen funds have returned to the @nomadxyz_ Funds Recovery Address.
~$95m (50% of stole funds) have no further movement yet pic.twitter.com/HaVshS1fCy

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 5, 2022

What’s next for Nomad?

Nomad stated it is actively working with law enforcement agents and blockchain firms to see that all users’ funds are returned. Co-founder and CEO of Nomad Pranay Mohan commented:

“The most important thing in crypto is community, and our number one goal is restoring bridged user funds.”

As a warning to hackers who will not take the peaceful route, Nomad reiterated that it has engaged all relevant agencies to trace the stolen funds and prosecute the parties behind them accordingly.