Euler Exploiter Says ‘Sorry,’ Returns Stolen $177M

The thief had a $1 million bounty on his head and got the attention of North Korean hackers

article-image

SquareMotion/Shutterstock modified by Blockworks

share

The exploiter of DeFi lending protocol Euler Finance has sent a series of messages through the blockchain, apologizing for stealing funds and promising to return all stolen money. 

Euler suffered a $200 million exploit earlier this month in which a hacker used a series of flash loans to trick Euler’s smart contract into believing it had fewer collateral tokens than debt tokens. 

Now, the hacker — who goes by “Jacob” — seems to have had a change of heart.

“Jacob here. I don’t think what I say will help me in any way but I still want to say it. I fucked up. I didn’t want to, but I messed with others’ money, others’ jobs, others’ lives,” the hacker said in an encoded blockchain message, asking for forgiveness.

In its initial recovery efforts, Euler Foundation launched a $1 million reward bounty to incentivize the arrest of the attacker. 

Loading Tweet..

Threats to the culprit came in from multiple angles, as an address associated with the Ronin bridge hacker — believed to be based in North Korea — attempted to trick the Euler hacker into sending over their private key information through a phishing scam.

The Euler team then sent an on-chain message to the Euler hacker, warning them of the probable phishing attempt and again urged the return of the stolen assets, noting “the simplest way out here is to return funds.”

Since then, things have taken a positive turn. On Saturday, the Euler attacker returned 51,000 ETH (about $88 million) to a wallet under the Euler team’s control, and more recently an additional four transactions of 7,800 ETH and $30 million in the DAI stablecoin has been returned to a wallet labelled Euler multisig 2, alongside a pledge to make good on all of it. 

Loading Tweet..

“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,” Jacob wrote in a separate on-chain message.


Get the news in your inbox. Explore Blockworks newsletters:

Tags

Decoding crypto and the markets. Daily, with Byron Gilliam.

Upcoming Events

Old Billingsgate

Mon - Wed, October 13 - 15, 2025

Blockworks’ Digital Asset Summit (DAS) will feature conversations between the builders, allocators, and legislators who will shape the trajectory of the digital asset ecosystem in the US and abroad.

recent research

Research Report Templates (2).png

Research

We’re bullish on the PUMP token. We believe Pump.fun's brand strength, existing integrations, product roadmap, and strategic levers justify PUMP's TGE valuation, and expect the token to re-rate meaningfully higher in the months ahead.

article-image

Crypto’s highest purpose might be to make markets better by making them bigger

article-image

The non-profit’s “Project Open” seeks to let stocks trade directly on Solana

article-image

The acquisition is Pump.fun’s first, and comes just days before its planned ICO

article-image

As Trump’s tariff war reignites, everyone is assuming the dollar will continue its path lower. But the journey might be bumpy

article-image

A valuation model for “blockchain GDP”

article-image

The mini app combines vibe-coding with a hypercasual game feed and is coming to the new Coinbase Wallet