A pseudonymous contributor to the Solana-based exchange Cypher has admitted to taking and gambling away the protocol’s funds recovered from an exploit.
Hoak seems to have withdrawn ETH, WSOL, BONK, as well as other cryptocurrencies across 36 transactions from Cypher’s redemption contract. Barrett, another Cypher contributor has been found. The Block calculated at current prices that the amount taken from the redemption contract totaled to around $250,000.
In a social media post, Barrett said that he contacted law enforcement about the transactions of Hoak.
In a recent statement, Hoak wrote that he knows nothing he says or does will make things better – perhaps other than rotting in jail. To address the elephant in the room, the allegations are true, he took the funds and gambled them away. He didn’t run away with it, nor did anyone else.
He also noted that his behavior was due to his worsening mental health over the past year. Hoak said he had a crippling gambling addiction and probably multiple other psychological factors that went by unchecked for too long.
Hoak continued that he let too many things pile up in his head for too long. He let them consume him, and ultimately they took the best of him — he completely lost it at late last year and earliest this year tot he point where simply trying to hold it together was impacting everything else in his life, distancing himself from long-time friends, family, not being able to meet the deadlines he set for himself, having erratic behaviors, name it.
Cypher experienced an exploit in August of last year. This resulted in loss of 38,530 SOL and 123,184 USDC. Cointelegraph reported that the total value loss from the exploit surpassed $1 million at the time.
$600,000 worth of funds stolen in the exploit on centralized exchanges have been freeze by The Cypher team. Afterwards, they created a redemption contract for users to recover their lost funds.
