After a hacking theft of more than $600 million in early August, Poly Network reports it has regained control of all stolen assets.
The hacker, which Poly Network refers to as “Mr. White Hat,” began returning assets shortly after the hack, before withholding the private key necessary to unlock access to those assets. Poly Network has also offered a bounty to the hacker worth $500,000.
Poly Network isn’t a crypto exchange or digital wallet platform. Instead, it helps facilitate crypto transfers between different cryptocurrencies’ blockchains. This can help people use their cryptocurrency across different networks.
“We are in the process of returning full asset control to users as swiftly as possible,” Poly Network wrote in its latest update. But recovering stolen digital assets at all is far from a guarantee for crypto investors. Cryptocurrencies are decentralized and largely unregulated across the globe, so there’s historically been very little investors can do if their crypto is stolen by hackers.
The Poly Network incident reinforces concerns many people — and regulators — have about cryptocurrency theft and fraud. This makes the importance of safe and secure investing all the more apparent.
