The hacking of the Curve DeFi platform became one of the most discussed topics this week. The incident, which happened on July 30, resulted in a loss of up to $50 million. On August 3, the story continued: three projects that suffered from the exploit — Curve, Metronome, and Alchemix — united in a novel appeal to their attacker.
What projects are offering
Curve, Metronome, and Alchemix made a transaction to the attacker's address and pinned a letter, in which they proposed the following:
💼 The hacker must return 90% of the stolen funds, leaving him/her a 10% reward (approximately $5-8 million);
🆓 In return, the hacker neither will be prosecuted nor have any problems with law enforcement;
⏳ The offer is on the table until August 6, 08:00 UTC;
🚨 If the hacker deckines, the reward will be shared among those who assist in the refund, and the hacker is expected to “pursue from all angles with the full extent of the law”.
For those intrigued, the complete text of the letter can be found on etherscan. Go to the “More Details” section under the main transaction information, and change the display of Input Data from “Default View” to “UTF-8”. Or, if you prefer visuals, look at the screenshot below.
How to get in touch with the hacker
When you send a Ethereum transaction, there is an optional data field that you can use to include extra information. Here is a three-step guide:
Step 1. Convert your message into hexadecimal format.
Ethereum transactions do not understand regular text, so you have to convert your message into hexadecimal format. Online tools are available to help with this step, check out this.
Step 2. Use a wallet that allows you to add data to your transaction.
Not all wallets support this feature, but generally, there should be an option like "Add Data", "Extra Data", "Transaction Data," or something like that. MetaMask is one of those who offer this function — here is our guide on how to use it.
Step 3. Add the hexadecimal message to the data field and send the transaction.
However, be cautious — the data you send is visible to everyone, so avoid sensitive information this way. Additionally, transactions with added data come with higher gas fees as they take up more space on the blockchain. For more secure encrypted messaging, there are alternatives, for instance, there is one on TON.
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