Crypto firm puts out 10 per cent bounty for stolen funds after £157m vanishes

Crypto firm Nomad announce today a 10 per cent bounty for the $190m (£157m) stolen funds it lost in a hack this week.

The company said it would give the bounty to hackers who return at least 90 per cent of the funds and will consider them to be “white hats”, meaning Nomad would not take legal action against them.

“Nomad will is continuing to work with the community, law enforcement, and blockchain analysis firms to ensure all funds are returned,” it said.

The firm provided an address for an official recovery wallet and warned against impersonators and scams.

Nomad’s “bridge”, which allows crypto transfers between blockchains, was attacked in a hack that led to £157m worth of users’ cryptocurrencies stolen.

“We are working around the clock to address the situation and have notified law enforcement and retained leading firms for blockchain intelligence and forensics,” the company said on Twitter following the heist.

“Our goal is to identify the accounts involved and to trace and recover the funds.”

Crypto thefts have risen recently with attacks on crypto bridges leading to more than $1bn (£0.8bn) stolen this year, according to blockchain analytics company Elliptic. 

Bridges are vulnerable to attacks as they are not decentralised, have large stores of liquidity, and can sometimes not have as much security, Elliptic said.

The heist adds to the crypto industry’s woes as it faces a severe “crypto winter” that has caused cryptocurrency prices to plunge and led to widespread losses across the market.