The hackers behind over of the largest ever crypto heists are returning the stolen funds, due, blockchain experts believe, to the difficulty in laundering such a large amount of cryptocurrency.
On Tuesday, Poly Network, a platform that facilitates peer-to-peer transactions, allowing users to transfer or swap tokens across different blockchains, said it had been hit by cyberheists resulting in €520 million worth of cryptocurrency being stolen.
However, on Wednesday, the hackers started returning the stolen tokens, with some €290 million being returned to date.
Blockchain analysts said they might have found it too difficult to launder stolen cryptocurrency on such a scale.
Poly Network noted that around €230 million worth of tokens remain stolen.
The theft illustrated the risks of the mostly unregulated decentralised finance (DeFi) sector.
DeFi platforms allow users to conduct transactions, usually in cryptocurrency, without traditional gatekeepers such as banks or exchanges.
According to the crypto website CoinDesk, Poly Network was launched by the founders of the Chinese blockchain project Neo.
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