Vitalik Buterin Sees 1M Optimism Tokens Stolen By Hacker Deposited In His Ethereum Wallet

Blockchain transaction data shows that the Optimism OP/USD hacker sent a million OP tokens to the wallet of Ethereum ETH/USD creator Vitalik Buterin.

What Happened: An alert from blockchain security firm PeckShield revealed that a million OP tokens, worth around $874,000 at the time, was sent to Buterin’s Ethereum wallet address.

#PeckShieldAlert ~1m $OP transfered to @VitalikButerin from Wintermute/OP exploiters https://t.co/U1c2MyeObE pic.twitter.com/wdLOd0XveC

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) June 9, 2022

This transaction followed the exploiter’s sale of a million OP tokens to the open market.

See Also: IS OPTIMISM (OP) A GOOD INVESTMENT?

Earlier today, Benzinga reported that Ethereum Layer 2 solution Optimism had suffered a $16 million loss after a hacker gained access to a wallet with 20 million OP tokens.

The hack reportedly took place on May 26, but Optimism only addressed it publicly on June 9, saying it was evaluating its current options.

Buterin earlier this month praised Optimism for adding a non-governance token to its ecosystem. The Ethereum founder was referring to the use of OP as a gas fee-paying token as opposed to a governance token.

This is a great example of why I'm so proud of @optimismPBC for adding non-token governance (the Citizen House).

Optimism explicitly has goals *other* than just "make OP go up", and the only way to do that long-term is with explicit representation of non-token-holder interests. pic.twitter.com/vofVVx53mC

— 豚林 vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 3, 2022

At press time, it was unclear whether Buterin was aware of the transfer.

See Also: Ethereum's Vitalik Buterin Sells $4.3M In Dogecoin Knock-Offs, Baby Shiba And Husky Token Drop 60%

Price Action: According to data from Benzinga Pro, OP was trading at $0.855, up 4.54% over the last 24 hours.