Thomas Daniels
The hacker responsible for the recent $5.8 million exploit of Loopscale, a Solana-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, is currently engaged in negotiations to return the stolen funds in exchange for a bounty, the platform confirmed.
The breach, which occurred on April 26, resulted in the unauthorized withdrawal of approximately 5.7 million USDC (valued at $0.9997 per token) and 1,200 Solana (SOL) tokens (trading at $148.56) from two of Loopscale’s yield vaults. In response, Loopscale temporarily suspended its lending markets to mitigate further risk.
The following day, the exploiter communicated via the Etherscan blockchain explorer, expressing a willingness to return the stolen assets under the condition of receiving a bounty. In an April 27 post on X (formerly Twitter), Loopscale shared the hacker’s proposal: “We are agreeable to collaborating with you to reach a white hat agreement. However, we would like to negotiate the bounty percentage; our expectation is 20%,” the message read. The hacker also pledged to immediately return 5,000 wrapped Solana (wSOL) to demonstrate good faith.
Public blockchain records indicate that negotiations are ongoing regarding the restitution of the remaining funds.
Web3 protocols often offer bounties to incentivize the return of stolen assets; however, successful recoveries remain rare. In the first quarter of 2025 alone, over $1.6 billion worth of cryptocurrency was reported stolen, with only a small fraction subsequently recovered.
According to Loopscale co-founder Mary Gooneratne, the April 26 attack exclusively impacted the protocol’s USDC and SOL vaults, representing approximately 12% of its total value locked (TVL). While lending operations were initially halted following the breach, Loopscale has since re-enabled loan repayments, top-ups, and loop closing functionalities, though withdrawals and certain other services remain temporarily suspended pending further investigation.
Launched on April 10, 2025, Loopscale seeks to enhance capital efficiency within the DeFi sector by directly matching lenders with borrowers. The platform also supports specialized lending markets, including structured credit, receivables financing, and undercollateralized lending, according to a statement shared with Cointelegraph in April.
