Hacker Behind $200M Euler Attack Apologizes, Returns Millions in Ether, Dai to Protocol

In a sudden turn of events, the attacker behind Euler Finance’s $200 million exploit returned more funds to the protocols and seemed to apologize in a series of messages sent on the blockchain.

“Jacob here. I don't think what I say will help me in any way but I still want to say it. I f**d up,” the attacker said in a message encoded in a transaction, as blockchain data apparently shows.

“I didn't want to, but I messed with others' money, others' jobs, others' lives. I really f**d up. I'm sorry. I didn't mean all that. I really didn't f**g mean all that. Forgive me,” they added.

In the past 12 hours, the attacker sent 7,000 ether and $10 million worth of dai stablecoins to the protocol, blockchain data shows. This came days after the attacker sent over 51,000 ether to Euler over the weekend.

The attacker has now returned over $120 million to the protocol. Euler had earlier threatened legal action and offered a $1 million bounty to the hacker in return for the funds.

The hacker, who now identifies as Jacob, said in a separate blockchain message they intended to return the entirety of the funds to Euler.

“The rest of the money will be returned ASAP. I only look after my safety, and that is the reason for the delay. I'm sorry for any misunderstanding,” they said, blockchain data apparently shows.

The lending protocol suffered an exploit earlier this month that resulted in almost $200 million being lost over four transactions in dai (DAI), wrapped bitcoin (wBTC), staked ether (sETH) and USD coin (USDC).

The attacker used a flash loan to conduct the attack by temporarily tricking the protocol into falsely assuming it held varying amounts of eToken and dToken, as CoinDesk previously reported.