Zksync Hacker Returns Stolen Funds, Keeps 10% Reward

The hacker who made off with $5 million in unclaimed ZK tokens complied with the safe harbor deadline and returned the funds, according to the Zksync Association.

Hacker Cooperates to Collect Bounty

The Zksync Association said the hacker who compromised an admin account and stole $5 million in unclaimed ZK tokens has “cooperated and returned the funds within the safe harbor deadline.” The hacker’s cooperation, which effectively ended Zksync Association’s investigation into the matter, allowed the hacker to keep 10% of the funds.

The announcement of the return of the funds came just three days after the Zksync Association proposed rewarding the hacker if he or she returned the tokens within a stipulated period. As explained in the ZK Security Council message on April 21, tokens transferred to the stipulated Zksnyc Era and Ethereum addresses within 72 hours would not be subject to transaction filtering.

At the time, the Zksync Association vowed to publicly confirm the resolution, acknowledge the hacker’s cooperation, and close the case without further action. However, it warned the hacker that if the hacker failed to cooperate, the matter would escalate with law enforcement.

As reported by Bitcoin.com News on April 15, the Zksync security team attributed the hack to a compromised admin account. The team claimed the incident was confined only to the ZK token airdrop contract and that no users had been impacted. Despite this reassurance, the ZK token price still plunged 13% to $0.04151 before gradually recovering. At the time of writing, the token was trading around $0.54.

Meanwhile, a ZKsync Association stated in a post on X that it is now awaiting a governance decision on what to do with the returned funds.

“The assets are now in custody of the Security Council, and the decision on what will be done with the assets will be made by governance. The final investigation report is being prepared and will be published once completed,” the association said.