Kronos Research Offers Hacker 10% Bounty to Return Stolen $25 Million

According to CoinDesk, Taipei-based cryptocurrency trading and investment firm Kronos Research has opened negotiations with a hacker who stole $25 million from the firm's treasury earlier this month. Kronos has offered the hacker a 10% bounty if they return 90% of the stolen funds. The theft was reported last week when the Taiwanese trading and VC firm revealed that an unauthorized entity had gained access to its API keys. Onchain experts ZachXBT and Lookonchain later confirmed the attacker made off with $25 million, mostly in stablecoins. Kronos stated that the losses amount to approximately $26 million in crypto assets, but the firm remains in good standing. All losses will be covered internally, and no partners will be affected. Public, on-chain negotiations between hackers and their victims have become increasingly common. Recently, the attacker behind an exploit of KyberSwap signed one of the transactions that pilfered funds from the decentralized exchange, stating that they would begin negotiations when they were 'fully rested.' KyberSwap offered them a 10% bounty to return stolen funds. In August, Curve Finance offered hackers a 10% bounty in exchange for the return of the stolen crypto, also negotiated via transaction signing. Over $1.2 billion has been stolen from Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocols this year, according to DeFiLlama.