Loopscale recovers $2.8M after weekend DeFi hack and bounty talks

DeFi protocol Loopscale has recovered nearly half of the funds stolen during a major exploit over the weekend, as white hat negotiations with the attacker show signs of progress.

In an April 29 update posted to X, Loopscale confirmed that approximately 19,463 Wrapped SOL (WSOL) (worth roughly $2.88 million) have been returned to its wallets since April 28.

The first two returns included 10,000 WSOL (~$1.48 million) and 4,463 WSOL (~$660,000), following an earlier recovery of 5,000 WSOL (~$740,000).

“Our pursuit of an amicable resolution regarding Saturday’s incident continues to make progress,” the team wrote.

Related: DeFi platform KiloEx to compensate users impacted by $7.5M hack

Loopscale offers 10% bounty for return of funds

On April 27, Loopscale’s team said it had sent an onchain message to the exploiter, offering them a 10% bounty and a full release of liability in exchange for the return of 90% of the stolen funds.

The team warned that if no agreement were reached within 24 hours, it would contact law enforcement.

At 3:52 pm Eastern Time on April 28, Loopscale announced it had received a response from the exploiter, who indicated willingness to negotiate a return in exchange for a bounty.

The exploit occurred on April 26, when manipulation of Loopscale’s RateX PT token pricing functions led to the theft of approximately $5.7 million in USDC (USDC) and 1,200 Solana (SOL) from its USDC and SOL vaults.

The stolen amount represented about 12% of the platform’s total funds and impacted only vault depositors, not borrowers or loopers.

While recoveries are not very common in decentralized finance, there have been more instances of successful fund returns as of late.

Related: WazirX confirms restart on track as it awaits sanction hearing in May

On April 27, Ethereum-based lending protocol Term Finance said it had recovered $1 million of the $1.6 million lost in an incident involving a misconfigured oracle on its Treehouse (tETH) market.

The team said 223 Ether (ETH) was recaptured internally, and another 333 ETH was recovered through negotiations.

In the first quarter of 2025, hackers stole more than $1.6 billion worth of crypto from exchanges and onchain smart contracts, blockchain security firm PeckShield said in an April report. 

More than 90% of those losses are attributable to a $1.5 billion attack on Bybit, a centralized cryptocurrency exchange, by North Korean hacking outfit Lazarus Group.

Magazine: Bitcoin $100K hopes on ice, SBF’s mysterious prison move: Hodler’s Digest, April 20 – 26