Victim of 90 Ether Hack Takes Swift Action: Attacker’s USDT Address Blacklisted for Possible Fund Recovery

By 0xGorki 08/12/23 6:53 AM

A victim of a cryptocurrency hack involving 90 Ether (ETH) has managed to take significant steps towards recovering their stolen funds. With the help of local law enforcement and cyber authorities, the victim, known by their Twitter handle @l3yum, successfully got the attacker’s Tether (USDT) address blacklisted. This action could potentially lead to the restitution of a substantial portion of the stolen funds.

The hack took place on March 16, leaving @l3yum’s hot wallet compromised after the hacker gained access to their seed phrase. The attack resulted in the theft of numerous Yuga Labs-related NFTs, along with crypto assets and NFTs from smaller projects. These pilfered assets were swiftly exchanged or sold by the assailant.

[2023/08/11 17:30] USDT blacklisted 0x788bc56b67c289399cd6e2022f0d76484f04724a in block 17893148 https://t.co/WipjkHXFGp

— usdt blacklist (@usdtblacklist) August 11, 2023

In an insightful thread posted on August 11, @l3yum shared the breakthrough with their followers, stating, “Today after working with the police and cyber team in my country, I was able to get the stolen funds sitting in USDT frozen and blacklisted.” The cooperative efforts of the involved parties, including the dedicated police officer who took on the unique challenge despite limited initial knowledge of cryptocurrencies, were lauded by the victim.

The people I was working with were amazing
The original police officer I dealt with didn’t even know anything about crypto aside from hearing of it, but after a few phone calls just by the way he was talking I knew he was learning and actually cared
Very grateful

— L3yum🍌 (@l3yum) August 11, 2023

While the stolen funds were predominantly locked up in USDT, it’s worth noting that the total value held in the attacker’s blacklisted wallet, $107,306, falls short of the victim’s total loss of approximately $166,000 at the time of writing. This discrepancy highlights the reality that the victim may not fully recover the entire sum that was stolen.

Nevertheless, a glimmer of hope shines through, as previous instances have shown that Tether, the issuer of USDT, has taken steps to make victims whole in similar situations. Typically, when a USDT address is blacklisted under circumstances like these, Tether has chosen to burn the blacklisted tokens and re-issue an equivalent amount of the asset to the original owner. This practice has contributed to maintaining confidence in the integrity of the USDT stablecoin.

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