US Authorities Seize $31M in Crypto Linked to 2021 Uranium Finance Hack

U.S. authorities seized $31 million in cryptocurrency-related to the April 2021 hack of Uranium Finance, a defunct DeFi platform.

The operation involved the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and Homeland Security Investigations in San Diego, as confirmed in a post on X on February 24.

Although authorities have not revealed the hackers’ identities, they encourage attack victims to come forward. This seizure represents an initial step toward potential restitution for those impacted by the breach, leaving many without answers for nearly three years.

Uranium Finance, a Binance Smart Chain-based fork of the popular decentralized exchange Uniswap, suffered a catastrophic security breach on April 28, 2021. Exploiting vulnerabilities in the platform’s version 2 (v2) smart contract code, the hacker managed to inflate the project’s balance by 100, ultimately siphoning off $50 million. 

Among the stolen assets were approximately $36.8 million in Binance Coin (BNB) and Binance USD (BUSD), along with other cryptocurrencies, including 80 Bitcoin (BTC), 1,800 Ether (ETH), 26,500 Polkadot (DOT), 5.7 million Tether (USDT), 638,000 Cardano (ADA), 112,000 Uranium’s native “U92” tokens.

Adding to the controversy, one of Uranium’s Discord administrators at the time suggested that the attack may have been an inside job, further fueling suspicions within the DeFi community.

After the exploit, the hacker quickly converted the stolen Polkadot and Cardano holdings into Ether. The funds were subsequently laundered through Tornado Cash, a crypto-mixing service designed to obscure transaction trails, before being transferred to centralized exchanges.

In October 2023, a significant transfer of stolen cryptocurrency occurred when a hacker moved $3.1 million in Binance USD (BUSD) from BNB Chain to the Ethereum blockchain. Following this breach, Uranium Finance ceased operations, shutting down its website and going silent on social media since April 30, 2021. Authorities have made strides toward holding the responsible parties accountable and possibly recovering assets for the victims.

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