Balancer Offers Bounty to Hacker After $100M Exploit

Balancer is in a tough spot. The decentralized exchange is dealing with a massive $100 million exploit. They are now making a last appeal to the hacker to return the funds. To settle matters with a bounty instead of a prolonged fight, the Balancer team has requested that the attacker come forward.

A Final Warning Onchain

For the first time concerning this hack issue, Balancer put its message directly onchain. The DAO issued a warning to the wallet responsible for the hack. The instructions were simple: Return the stolen funds, claim a bounty, or face technical, legal, and on-chain consequences.

The impact on many users was significant, and they are awaiting the news on the course of action. Balancer explained to them that as the investigation continues, they will keep them updated on the progress.

The $100M Exploit

The exploit hit Balancer’s V2 Composable Stable Pools. More than $100 million in staked Ether was drained. This included OSETH, WETH, and wstETH. They moved all funds to a new wallet.

Then, people started asking questions about the audits. Four different security companies had reviewed Balancer’s smart contracts, yet the exploit still occurred.

Last Wednesday, Balancer published a post-mortem. They explained the issue: Hackers used BatchSwaps and a rounding function tied to EXACT_OUT swaps. This flaw appeared in both v2 Stable Pools and Composable Stable v5 Pools. That combination opened the door for the attacker. Cointelegraph reached out to one of the auditors. They did not respond before the article went live.

The Bounty Offer

The onchain message did not reveal the bounty amount. However, earlier, the Balancer team announced that they would offer up to 20% of the stolen funds. That is more than $20 million, and at the time of writing, no one had accepted the deal.

Balancer is attempting to resolve this issue without causing further harm. The team wants the hacker to return the funds so the platform can move forward with better security.

Conclusion

The Balancer exploit is one of the biggest crypto attacks this year. The DAO hopes the bounty works. They hope the hacker picks cooperation over chaos. Balancer is doing everything it can to close this chapter and rebuild trust.