Hackers return $342 million of stolen coins

London - Hackers behind one of the biggest coin heists have today returned over half of the $610 million stolen, the cryptocurrency platform that was targeted by the hack on Thursday.

Poly Network, a platform that facilitates peer-to-peer transactions, said in Twitter https: twitter.com PolyNetwork 2 status 1425733950614360064 that hackers had returned $342 million of stolen currencies as of 0818 GMT.

Some $268 million in tokens are still outstanding, it said.

The Poly Network, which allows users to swap tokens across different blockchains, said on Tuesday that it had been hit by cyberheists, urging the culprits to return stolen funds.

The theft illustrated the risks of the mostly decentralised and unregulated financial sector. DeFi platforms allow users to conduct transactions, usually in Cryptocurrency, without traditional gatekeepers such as banks or exchanges.

The hacker or hackers who have not been identified start returning stolen coins on Wednesday. Blockchain analysts said they found it too difficult to launder stolen cryptocurrency on such a scale.

The Poly Network emailed Reuters a copy of its tweet in response to a request for further details on the latest return.

It did not immediately respond to questions on whether a law enforcement agency is based in the UK or whether any law enforcement agency was involved. According to the Chinese blog CoinDesk, Neo was founded by the founders of the Bitcoin project Poly Network.