Liquid Network Hackers Return 3,400 Bitcoin, 598 BTC Still Missing

Purported white hat hackers returned 3,400 Bitcoin (BTC) to Liquid Network, leaving about 598 BTC worth roughly $47 million outstanding.

Key Points:

• The group sent back 85% of the roughly 4,000 BTC drained from Liquid's federation wallet over the weekend.
• Liquid stays paused while its operators finish security work, unwind a chain split and restore full backing for L-BTC.
• Ledger's chief technology officer questions whether the 598 BTC left behind can honestly be called a bug bounty.

Liquid Network Returns 3,400 Bitcoin To Federation

Onchain records confirmed the return, showing exactly 3,400 BTC sent to the federation's peg address at 16:09 UTC on Monday, a little more than a day after the coins vanished.

The two sides bargained in public first, writing short messages into Bitcoin transactions, and the hackers refused to move anything until every node in the network carried the fix. The money landed once Blockstream said the bridge was patched.

Samson Mow, the JAN3 chief executive and former Blockstream executive who has been relaying updates on the incident, said Monday that roughly 598 BTC remains outstanding and that discussions with the group continue. He asked holders to send nothing to Liquid peg-in addresses until a restart is confirmed.