Two hands shaking hand, text asking if Harmony can get the stolen funds back?

Hacker counter Harmony's proposal by laundering 36M of the stolen assets

By Patch | Things of note and other interesting stuff | 28 Jun 2022

The hacker has seemingly given their answer to the insulting offer from Harmony. And that is to start laundering the part of the stolen assets.

How the hackers responded

While I do not think there has been any direct contact between the hackers and Harmony. The saying is that action speaks louder than words. And in this case, I would say the message they are sending is a pretty clear one. It is pretty much a negotiation equivalent of a FU back to Harmony.

PeckShield has shown the stolen funds being moved, and in this thread, you will be able to see the other two transactions as well

But I would still say that the hackers have left some room for negotiations. As they "only" have sent 36 of the stolen 100M to Tornado Cash, a mixing service. And if you like me never have heard of a "mixing service", they pretty much offer a way for less scrupulous people to "clean" their money. They do this by putting the stolen funds, along with other funds of the same type, into one gigantic pile. And then when you withdraw your funds you will get some new coins instead of the ones you put in. And as long as you transfer them to a new wallet it is basically impossible to connect the incoming crypto with the outgoing.

There is still hope

As I said I do not think the hackers have totally closed the door for negotiations. As they pretty much just as easily could have sent all the stolen funds to the mixer. Instead of only sending 36M as they did, in a total of three transactions.

So it might very well be that the hackers are now waiting for a counter-proposal from Harmony. As they now basically have said. If you do not want to play ball, then now you will only be able to get back 74M. And we will keep decreasing this number until you offer better terms. It is the equivalent of a terrorist killing a hostage just as a show of force.

What do you think about this whole mess? Should Harmony try and gett the stolen funds back by increasing the reward, or would you argue that is only counterproductive in the long run? Please share your thoughts about this in the comment section down below.

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