Paolo Ardoino was on the front lines of one of the largest cryptocurrency heists of all time.
He was flooded with calls and messages in August, alerting him to a breach at Poly Network, a platform where users swap tokens between popular cryptocurrencies, such as ethereum, binance, and dogecoin. Hackers had made off with $610 million in crypto, belonging to tens of thousands of people. Roughly $33 million of the funds were swiftly converted into tether, a “stable coin” with a value that mirrors the U.S. dollar.
Ardoino, Tether’s chief technology officer, took note. Typically, when savvy cyber criminals make off with cryptocurrency, they transfer the assets between online wallets through difficult-to-trace transactions. And poof — the money is lost.
Ardoino sprang into action and minutes later froze the assets.
“We were really lucky,” he said. “Minutes after we issued the freezing transaction, we saw the hacker attempt to move out his tether. If we had waited five minutes more, all the tether would be gone.”
Continue reading: https://www.inquirer.com/wires/wp/tracking-stolen-crypto-is-booming-business-how-blockchain-sleuths-recover-digital-loot-20210926.html
He was flooded with calls and messages in August, alerting him to a breach at Poly Network, a platform where users swap tokens between popular cryptocurrencies, such as ethereum, binance, and dogecoin. Hackers had made off with $610 million in crypto, belonging to tens of thousands of people. Roughly $33 million of the funds were swiftly converted into tether, a “stable coin” with a value that mirrors the U.S. dollar.
Ardoino, Tether’s chief technology officer, took note. Typically, when savvy cyber criminals make off with cryptocurrency, they transfer the assets between online wallets through difficult-to-trace transactions. And poof — the money is lost.
Ardoino sprang into action and minutes later froze the assets.
“We were really lucky,” he said. “Minutes after we issued the freezing transaction, we saw the hacker attempt to move out his tether. If we had waited five minutes more, all the tether would be gone.”
Continue reading: https://www.inquirer.com/wires/wp/tracking-stolen-crypto-is-booming-business-how-blockchain-sleuths-recover-digital-loot-20210926.html
