Sturdy Finance, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, has offered a $100,000 bounty to the hacker responsible for exploiting its protocol, with the condition that they return the remaining funds. The platform experienced a loss of nearly $800,000 in digital assets due to vulnerabilities within its system, caused by a faulty price oracle and a reentrancy attack.
In an attempt to resolve the issue, Sturdy Finance has expressed its willingness to drop the matter if the attacker accepts the offer, highlighting the changing landscape where evading exploits has become more difficult.
Following recent successful cases, such as Euler Finance and Sentiment, which recovered a significant portion of stolen funds by negotiating and offering bounties to hackers, Sturdy Finance sees the potential for recovering the hacked funds through discussions with the attacker. The platform’s co-founder, Sam Forman, emphasized the importance of adapting to the evolving nature of exploits and expressed openness to engaging in conversations.
However, not all projects have been fortunate in their negotiations. Jimbos Protocol offered an $800,000 bounty to the public after the attacker who exploited their platform disregarded the bounty offer, prompting the platform to seek assistance from anyone who could lead to the hacker’s arrest or fund recovery.
This incident highlights the increasing prevalence of hacking attempts targeting DeFi platforms and the varying approaches taken by affected projects to recover the funds and hold hackers accountable.
Offering bounties to hackers has shown some promise in incentivizing cooperation and retrieving stolen assets, although success is not guaranteed in every case. Sturdy Finance’s decision to offer a bounty reflects the platform’s determination to mitigate the damage caused by the exploit and underscores the ongoing challenges faced by DeFi platforms in maintaining security and trust in the ecosystem.
