Harmony Offers $1M For Information About Stolen Funds

Layer 1 blockchain protocol Harmony ONE/USD has offered a bounty of $1 million for information about a theft on the Horizon bridge amounting to around $100 million, in which tokens including Wrapped Ethereum WETH/USD, Aave AAVE/USD, SushiSwap SUSHI/USD, DAI DAI/USD, Tether USDT/USD and USD Coin USDC/USD were stolen.

"Harmony will advocate for no criminal charges when funds are returned," the company stated.

Harmony Working With FBI To Retrieve Funds

Harmony had earlier identified the address of the culprit and had stated its team was working with "national authorities and forensic specialists" to retrieve the stolen funds.

The company had also said it was "working around the clock" alongside the FBI and "multiple cyber security firms."

The Horizon bridge was stopped to prevent further transactions, and the company said that the exploit does not affect its trustless Bitcoin BTC/USD bridge. "Its funds and assets stored on decentralized vaults are safe at this time," the company said.

See Also: Harmony Plunges As Horizon Ethereum Bridge Falls To Hacker Attack: What Cryptos Were Stolen?

Native Token Tumbles 10%

Harmony’s native token, after nose-diving 10% following the attack, is currently trading lower by 2.97% at $0.02261 late Monday afternoon.

Launched in 2019 by Stephen Tse, Harmony Protocol is a proof of stake blockchain and its Horizon bridge is a cross-chain bridge that allows users to move their assets from one blockchain to another. Users can move their assets between Harmony’s network and Ethereum ETH/USD, Binance Chain and Bitcoin.

Cross-Chain Bridges Under Attack

Cross-chain bridges have recently been attacked a number of times by hackers. In January 2022, Qubit Finance’s bridge was hacked for $80 million and a month later, hackers stole $320 million from the Wormhole bridge. In March, $622 million worth of Ethereum and USDC Coin USDC/USD were stolen from Axie Infinity’s Ronin bridge. 

Photo: Marek Gahura via Shutterstock