Kyber Hacker Demands Total Executive Control Of Company In Return For Stolen Assets

Amid efforts to reclaim over $46 million in stolen assets, DeFi platform Kyber Network has received a stunning ultimatum: forfeit total control of both the company and protocol, and all stakeholders will be made whole.

Via-on chain messaging on Thursday, the platform’s anonymous hacker demanded “complete executive control over Kyber,” alongside temporary ownership and control of its governance mechanism, KyberDAO, to enact governance changes at will.

The New ‘Kyber Director’

To that end, he also requires all documents and information related to Kyber, including details about the company and protocol’s origins, its structure, its investors, and its balance sheet.

“This is my best offer. This is my only offer,“ wrote the hacker, referring to himself as the ‘Kyber Director’.

Under the new arrangement, the culprit still has no plan to directly return any funds.

In fact, he has also demanded the full forfeiture of Kyber’s on-chain and off-chain assets, including “shares, equity, tokens, partnerships, blogs, websites, servers, passwords, code, social channels, and all creative and intellectual property of Kyber.”

Instead, the hacker’s compensation includes buying out Kyber’s executives at “fair valuation” with a good natured farewell. “You haven’t done anything wrong,” he said, noting that their failure was “simply bad luck.”

The company’s employees received an even better offer, including doubled salaries and 12-months severance pay for anyone who still wanted to leave the firm. Meanwhile, holders of Kyber’s governance token, KNC, have merely been promised that their investments will “no longer be worthless.”

Finally, Kyber’s liquidity providers have been offered a 50% rebate on the losses they’ve incurred since the hack during their market-making activity. “I know this is probably less than what you wanted. However, it is also more than you deserve,” the hacker wrote.

Keeping Kyber Alive

Kyber’s executives have been given until December 10 to accept the offer before it expires. Under his leadership, the hacker claims Kyber will evolve from the “7th most popular DEX” into “an entirely new cryptographic project.”

“Kyber is one of the original and longest-running DeFi protocols,” he concluded. “No one wants to see it go under.”

Kyber was first hacked on November 22 for various tokens including Wrapped ETH (WETH) Arbitrum (ARB), DAI, and others.

Ever since, he has repeatedly taunted Kyber’s executives through on-chain messaging, providing exact details on how he executed his hack, and demanding that his counterparties be more respectful.

Kyber retrieved a small portion of its losses from bot operators earlier this week. Nevertheless, its TVL remains at just $7.6 million, compared to $86 million before the hack.