Whitehats return the money

The Liquid network hack has taken a new turn: the hackers, who describe themselves as “white hats,” have returned 3,400 BTC—worth approximately $268 million—after Blockstream announced it had fixed the exploited vulnerability. However, they are still holding 598.5 BTC, worth approximately $47 million. The attack had allowed nearly 4,000 BTC to be withdrawn from Liquid’s reserves, primarily due to a flaw in the Elements software that reportedly allowed the creation of L-BTC not backed by real bitcoins. For now, the Liquid network remains suspended, and operations are on hold while teams verify that the L-BTCs are once again backed at a 1:1 ratio. This situation once again highlights the technical risks associated with crypto infrastructure, even when the private keys themselves have not been compromised.