K9 Finance offers $23K bounty after $2.4M Shibarium exploit

Shiba Inu’s decentralized finance platform on its Shibarium layer-2 network offered a 5 Ether ($23,000) bounty to the attacker behind a recent bridge exploit, urging the return of stolen assets.

On Monday, the DeFi platform sent an onchain message to the attacker saying that the bounty offer will remain open for 30 days. The protocol added a deadline and a condition that the bounty will begin decreasing in seven days.

“Settlement is atomic when we call recoverKnine(). If you call accept() we cannot cancel the deal. Code is law,” K9 Finance wrote. “Bounty is live. Please, act fast.”

In an X post on Saturday, Shiba Inu developer Kaal Dhairya said that while they have already contacted the authorities, the team is open to negotiating with the attacker.

K9 Finance’s message to the Shibarium attacker. Source: Etherscan

Shiba Inu’s Shibarium bridge loses about $2.4 million to exploit

The Saturday exploit drained about $2.4 million in digital assets after malicious actors accessed validator signing keys. Using a flash loan to buy 4.6 million Bone ShibaSwap (BONE) tokens, the attacker obtained majority validator power and signed a malicious transaction to move the funds out of the bridge.

Dhairya said that in response to the attack, Shibarium developers have paused their stake and unstake functions and moved their stake manager funds into a hardware wallet controlled by a multisig.

The developer said that restoring network security and safeguarding user assets remain the team’s top priority. Dhairya added that they are working with security teams, including Hexens, Seal 911 and PeckShield to investigate.

Tokens associated with the Shiba Inu ecosystem saw price drops after the exploit. The Shiba Inu (SHIB) token dropped from $0.0000145 on Saturday to $0.0000131 at the time of writing, a 7% decline.

The K9 Finance (KNINE) token dropped from $0.00000287 to $0.00000257, a 10% drop. Meanwhile, ShibaSwap’s token, BONE, has suffered a 38% drop since Sunday, going from $0.31 to $0.19.

Shiba Inu’s 24-hour price chart. Source: CoinGecko

Related: Dogecoin price rises despite latest delay of US DOGE ETF launch

THORChain co-founder loses $1.35 million from DPRK attack

The Shibarium exploit follows another smaller-scale attack targeting the personal wallet of THORChain co-founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen (JP Thor). Onchain investigator ZachXBT reported on Friday that Thorbjornsen was drained after a meeting call scam on Telegram.

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