$320M Wormhole Bridge Hacker Allegedly Qualified for W Tokens Airdrop

The perpetrator behind the $321 million Wormhole bridge hack was initially identified as potentially eligible for an airdrop of the newly launched W token, with an estimated value of $50,000.

The exploit of the Wormhole bridge occurred in February 2022, marking a significant event in the crypto industry's history.

Hacker Reportedly Eligible for W Tokens Airdrop

On 3 April, Wormhole announced its airdrop of over 675 million W tokens, valued at approximately $850,000, to qualifying users.

However, concerns arose when Pland, a pseudonymous researcher, noted that certain wallet addresses associated with the exploit were overlooked by the Wormhole team, allowing them temporary eligibility for the airdrop.

Data from the Solana-based airdrop checker, airdrop.link, indicates that four wallet addresses were provisionally authorised to claim Wormhole's airdrop.

If the hacker opted to claim these airdrops, they could have received roughly 31,642 Wormhole (W) tokens, valued at approximately $50,000 at present rates.

However, further inquiries on airdrop.link unveiled that these wallet addresses are no longer eligible, suggesting that the Wormhole team may have already taken steps to resolve the matter.

The W token debuted at $1.66 on the Solana-based decentralised exchange (DEX) OpenBook, boasting a market capitalisation of $3 billion and a fully diluted value of $16.5 billion.

However, OpenBook faced congestion issues upon release, leading to reports of inaccessibility from users.

The token comprises 6% of the total supply, with additional allocations for core contributors and the foundation's treasury.

Initially launched on Solana, the token will later be issued natively on Ethereum and layer-2 networks.

Vulnerability in Wormhole Liquidity Bridge

In 2022, an attacker exploited a vulnerability in the Wormhole liquidity bridge, linking the Ethereum and Solana blockchains, resulting in the loss of 120,000 wrapped ether.

Following the breach, Web3 infrastructure firm Jump Crypto and decentralised finance (DeFi) platform Oasis.app orchestrated a 'counter exploit' against the Wormhole protocol hacker in February 2023.

Remarkably, these entities managed to recover $225 million in digital assets from the wormhole exploiter, returning them to secure wallets.

Since the incident, Wormhole has significantly bolstered its security measures, introducing two bug bounty programmes with a combined reward pool of $5 million to incentivise the identification and reporting of potential vulnerabilities for swift resolution.

Additionally, multiple third-party firms have conducted thorough audits to address critical issues within Wormhole's system.