HTX, Huobi Global's crypto exchange, was hacked late last month, and about 5,000 ETH were stolen at that time. This crypto is equivalent to roughly $8 million when the incident took place on Sept. 25.

According to CoinTelegraph, the hackers targeted one of HTX's hot wallets and drained its entire content. A short moment after the hacking, HTX was able to get in touch with the hacker, and it claimed to have known the hacker's identity.

HTX Announced the Recovery of the Stolen Funds

Since the hacker was identified as soon as the heist was discovered, HTX was able to take action promptly and said it already recovered the funds. Huobi Global's crypto exchange confirmed the hacker returned the stolen assets.

Following the return of the funds and solving the incident, HTX issued a bounty for the hacker worth 250 Ether (ETH). The company announced a five percent bounty worth about $400,000 for the return of the funds. In addition, it said it will not take any legal action against the hacker if 95% of the funds is returned before a set deadline.

A few days after the announcement, Justin Sun, one of the investors at Huobi Global who is also acting as HTX adviser, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter, "We have confirmed that the hacker has fully returned all funds, as promised, and we have also paid the hack a white hat bonus of 250 ETH."

He also seemingly praised the hacker for the return of the stolen Ether. "The hacker made the right choice. We would like to express our gratitude to everyone in the industry for their help!" he said.

Hacking Incidents in the Crypto Space

The number of thefts via hacking in the crypto world increased and became almost uncontrolled in the third quarter of this year. Based on a recent report from the Immunefi blockchain security platform, a total of 76 hacks on crypto and Web3 projects were recorded in Q3. This was a big increase compared to last year in the same period, which only had 30 incidents.

In any case, CoinDesk reported that in the case of HTX, only one of its hot wallets was emptied, but this one is receiving about $500 million in deposits from Binance since it was registered in March.

"$8 million represents a relatively small sum in comparison to the $3 billion worth of assets held by our users. It also amounts to just two weeks' revenue for the HTX platform," Sun commented.

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