Loopscale, a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform, has managed to recover around $2.8 million after being exploited in a major exploit over the weekend. Negotiations with the exploiter, who stole $6 million in assets from Loopscale’s multi-chain vaults on April 26, preceded this recovery. This incident is illustrative of an alarming new trend. Just in the first quarter of 2025, hackers made off with more than $1.6 billion in stolen crypto.
The core developers team from Loopscale scored a huge 19,463 Wrapped SOL (WSOL) in return. This sum, worth approximately $2.88 million, has been returned to its wallets since April 28. Moreover, 223 Ether (ETH) was recaptured through internal recapture, and another 333 ETH achieved through negotiation. The initial returns were 10,000 WSOL, currently valued at $1.48 million. This was immediately followed by 4,463 WSOL worth $660,000, plus an earlier recover of 5,000 WSOL, or about $740,000.
On April 26, that exploit hit Loopscale. Hackers drained 1,200 Solana (SOL) from the firm’s USDC and SOL vaults. In the aftermath of the incident, Loopscale threatened retaliation by notifying police unless a settlement was made within 24 hours. At 3:52 pm Eastern Time on April 28, Loopscale announced it had received a response from the exploiter, who indicated a willingness to negotiate a return in exchange for a bounty.
"Our pursuit of an amicable resolution regarding Saturday’s incident continues to make progress." - Loopscale
This incident has taken place during a period of unprecedented crypto hack skyrocketing. According to PeckShield, hackers absconded with more than $1.6 billion in stolen crypto. This was the third largest theft across exchanges and on-chain smart contracts in the first quarter of 2025. More than 90% of these losses are from a $1.5 billion hack on Bybit. This centralized cryptocurrency exchange was one of the major hacks conducted by the North Korea cyber group Lazarus Group.
Other platforms have faced similar challenges. WazirX was able to recover $1 million of the $1.6 million that was lost through a misconfigured oracle hack. This fortunate incident took place in their Treehouse (tETH) market. KiloEx, the new decentralized platform, will reimburse users who were impacted by the recent $7.5 million hack. They are providing a 10% bounty as well as a full release of liability if users bring back 90% of the funds.
