By
Mercy Tukiya Mutanya
November 27th, 2023
Both parties failed to reach an agreement on the safe return of the stolen assets despite Kyber offering the hacker 10% of the funds, which amounted to $4.3 million.
The hacker behind the $46 million exploit on KyberSwap, a decentralized exchange that allows users to send and receive different cryptocurrencies, issued an ultimatum for the return of the digital assets stolen from the protocol on November 23.
According to an on-chain message sent to the company on Thursday, the black hat hacker laid out demands for the safe return of the assets, including total control and unrestricted access to the protocol as well as temporary full authority and ownership of its governance mechanism, the KyberDAO, all documents related to the company, and lastly all of the Kyber company’s assets.
Negotiating with the Thieves
Kyber and the hacker have been in open discussion since last week’s incident to retrieve the funds after the exploiters sent an on-chain message to the team addressing the developers, employees, decentralized autonomous organization community, and liquidity providers, informing them about their willingness to return the loot.
“Negotiations will start in a few hours when I am fully rested,” reads the message.
However, both parties failed to reach an agreement on the safe return of the stolen assets despite Kyber offering the hacker 10% of the funds, which amounted to $4.3 million.
The cybercriminal has now laid out their only demand, to acquire the firm at a fair valuation and promising to compensate the company’s current executives for their contributions.
The hacker also wished the employees well in their “future endeavors,” giving those who wish to depart from the firm a 12-month severance package with full benefits and assistance in finding new careers.
The hacker planned to “double their salaries” under the new leadership for the staff that chose to remain with the company after the takeover.
Hacker Gives KyberSwap Time until December 10 to Comply
The exploiter also extended their generosity to Kyber’s token holders and investors. According to the on-chain message, the hackers will ensure the “tokens will no longer be worthless” after the complete transition. The message reads:
“Is this not sweet enough? I’ll go further still. Under my management, Kyber will undergo a complete makeover. It will no longer be the 7th most popular DEX but an entirely new cryptographic project.”
Additionally, the protocol’s liquidity providers are not left behind. The cybercriminal said that liquidity providers would be offered rebates for their market-making activity. The reward will be 50% of the losses that they have incurred.
“I know this is probably less than what you wanted. However, it is also more than you deserve,” the hacker wrote.
The thief has given Kyber until December 10 to comply with the demands. Furthermore, the hacker also threatened that the offer would be deemed invalid if the conditions were not met by the deadline or if law enforcement agents make any efforts to communicate with them regarding the exploit on Kyber.