A hacker stole $340M in a crypto heist, then returned most of it

A hacker stole thousands of bitcoins worth about $340 million from Liquid Network, a settlement network used by several cryptocurrency exchanges. The theft was one of the largest known cryptocurrency thefts of the year.

Liquid Network, launched in 2018 by cryptocurrency firm Blockstream, said on X on Sunday that a “white hat” hacker took the funds from the network’s wallet. The network paused operations while the incident is resolved.

The hacker’s identity is unknown. Crypto media reported that the hacker allegedly exploited a bug to withdraw the funds, then said they would return the bitcoins if Blockstream fixed it.

Former Blockstream executive Samson Mow said on X on Monday that the company had fixed the bug. Around 3,400 of the roughly 4,000 stolen bitcoins had been returned, while about 600 bitcoins, worth about $47 million, remained under the hacker’s control.

Mow said operations would remain paused until additional fixes and security improvements were completed before a restart. The Rekt leaderboard, which tracks cryptocurrency thefts, ranks the incident among the largest thefts of digital funds to date.