$320M Solana-Ether Wormhole Bridge Exploit: Hacker Earns Yields On Staked Tokens

A hacker responsible for the $320 million exploit of the Solana-Ether Wormhole bridge in 2022 has been actively engaging with the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem.

The individual behind the exploit exchanged some of the fraudulently obtained assets for Ether ETH/USD and may be earning yields on staked tokens, according to blockchain security firm Peckshield.

Blockchain data shows that the exploiter wallet 0x629 transferred over $46 million in various tokens to Maker, a lending and borrowing platform.

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The wallet then used the collateral to buy $16 million worth of Ether, including 1,000 staked Ether (stETH), which was wrapped into over 9,700 wrapped staked Ether (wstETH), Peckshield stated.

#PeckShieldAlert The Wormhole Network Exploiter 0x629e supplied $46M worth of cryptos, including 24.4k $wstETH ($41.4M) & 3k $rETH (~$5M), to MakerDAO for 16.6M $DAI & used them to buy 9.75k $ETH ($ETH at $1,537) & 1k $stETH ($ETH at $1,543), then wrapped them for ~9.7k $wstETH pic.twitter.com/BRfygHgpit

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) February 12, 2023

This activity created temporary buying pressure on Ether, pushing its price from $1,520 to over $1,530.

The exploiter bought 9,750 Ether at $1,537 apiece, which is a significant amount of cryptocurrency that could potentially impact the market.

The same exploiter wallet, 0x629, has been involved in other DeFi exploits.

In January of this year, the wallet swapped 95,360 ETH, worth roughly $157 million at the time, on the DeFi aggregator OpenOcean.

The wallet then leveraged Dai DAI/USD stablecoins and interacted with several smart contracts on Lido, the top provider for liquid staking derivatives on Ethereum.