Interest Protocol on Optimism exploited for ~$43K; developers offer 20% bounty ($8.6K) for return of 80% of stolen funds.
Security & Exploits ·
Interest Protocol's Optimism deployment was compromised in an exploit that netted the attacker approximately $43,000 while inflicting roughly $57,000 in protocol damages. The attack occurred on the instance deployed at 0x18e34ce214211afedb6008c0cd00d476ce71222643521dbff5e2b65cdb2ccb80, according to an on-chain message sent by the protocol team.
Rather than immediately pursuing legal action, the developers made a public offer to the attacker: return 80 percent of the stolen funds to the team's recovery wallet and retain 20 percent—approximately $8,600—as a vulnerability discovery bounty. The protocol team framed the arrangement as an alternative to conventional law enforcement, emphasizing the attacker would avoid legal exposure and the complications of converting proceeds to fiat currency.
It remains unclear whether the attacker has responded to the offer, and the incident's underlying technical vector has not been publicly disclosed. The outcome of the negotiation and whether any recovery occurred are not yet known.