Vitalik’s Wallet Receives 1 Million OP Tokens From Optimism Exploiter

Blockchain data shows that a recent unintentional recipient of 20 million OP tokens from Optimism sent 1 million of those tokens to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.

• According to security firm Blockchain PackshieldThe exploiter’s network address sent 1,000,000 OP to an address previously identified as belonging to Vitalik.
• At the time of writing, the funds are worth about $874,000. This happens after the exploiter has already Sales 1 million more tokens before Vitalik’s transaction.
• In addition, the exploiter delegated voting rights for the sent tokens to Yoav Weiss, a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. Previously, Vitalik delegated about 1,700 tokens to the same person.
• Optimism recently completed its OP token giveaway, giving OPs to the earliest and most dedicated users of the Tier 2 network. More than 50% of eligible addresses have already requested their tokens.
• On Wednesday, Optimism intended to send 20 million OP to crypto market maker Wintermute. However, a transaction error on the Wintermute side due to Level 2 complexities results in loss of access to tokens.
• The attacker took OP shortly after and attempts by Optimism and Wintermute to contact him came to nothing.
• Wintermute took full responsibility for the issue and even said they were impressed with the attacker’s performance.