All the stolen All Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) and Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) non-fungible tokens (NFTs), taken from NFT Trader in a recent hack, have been restored after a bounty was paid.
The hack, which happened on December 16, led to the theft of NFTs valued at nearly $3 million. The attacker, through public messages, blamed another user for the original exploit and demanded a ransom for the NFTs’ return. They stated specific amounts in Ethereum (ETH) as a bounty to be paid for each NFT.
Responding quickly, a collective effort spearheaded by Boring Security, a nonprofit Web3 security project backed by ApeCoin, swiftly retrieved all assets within 24 hours by paying the 120 Ether (ETH) bounty. As of now, the paid bounty stands at approximately $267,000.
The Boring Security team, via X (formerly Twitter), confirmed possession of all 36 BAYC and 18 MAYC NFTs that were in the exploiter’s possession. To regain control, the team transferred a bounty equivalent to 10% of the collection’s floor price to the hacker.
Greg Solano, co-founder of Yuga Labs, the entity behind both NFT collections, facilitated the bounty payment. Yuga Labs aided in negotiations for the tokens’ recovery, returning them to their rightful owners without any charge.
