After losing about $190 million to hackers, crypto startup Nomad has offered to let the hackers keep up to 10% of what they took as a bounty. The company clarified that the bounty is for those who come forward now and who have already returned funds.
Nomad Offers Bounty On Stolen Crypto
In a statement late Thursday, Nomad said it had recovered over $20 million of what had been taken in the hack. The crypto startup has since pinned a tweet about the 10% bounty on its Twitter account. Nomad said the bounty will be considered for any party who returns at least 90% of the total funds they hacked to a “white hat” hacker.
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The company also agreed not to pursue legal action against white hats and advised the hackers to return the funds to its official recovery wallet address on the Ethereum blockchain. In its tweet, Nomad also advised readers to "be wary of impersonators and other scams."
The crypto startup added that it continues to work with its community, law enforcement and blockchain analysis firms to ensure the return of all the stole cryptocurrency.
What Happened To Nomad
Nomad sustained a $190 million loss when a vulnerability enabled hackers to breach its security and make off with the cryptocurrency. Users of the blockchain were able to withdraw funds of any amount by simply entering any value into the system, even if there weren't enough tokens to cover the withdrawal.
While Nomad specifically blamed hackers for the breach of its Bridge, CNBC explained that the nature of the vulnerability meant that no programming or coding skills were needed to exploit it. After others discovered what was happening, they conducted the same attack on Nomad's network.
How Nomad And Other Crypto Bridges Work
The company is working with law enforcement and blockchain analysis firm TRM Labs to trace the stolen cryptocurrency and identify those behind the attack. Nomad is also working with Anchorage Digital, a bank that holds cryptocurrency for customers.
Nomad is a crypto bridge, which connects multiple blockchain networks together, enabling users to transfer tokens from various blockchains. Users deposit tokens, and then the bridge generates the same amount in "wrapped" form on the other side. The wrapped tokens are a claim on the original, which allows users to trade on other platforms than the one their tokens were built on.
