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

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

• According to Blockchain security firm PeckShield, the exploiter’s network address sent 1,000,000 OP to an address previously established as belonging to Vitalik.
• The funds are worth about $874,000 at the time of writing. This comes after the exploiter had already sold another 1 million tokens prior to the Vitalik transaction.
• Furthermore, the exploiter delegated the voting rights for the sent tokens to Yoav Weiss – a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. Vitalik had previously delegated about 1700 tokens to the same person.
• Optimism recently completed its airdrop of the OP token, providing OP to the earliest and most dedicated users of the layer 2 network. Over 50% of eligible addresses have now claimed their tokens.
• On Wednesday, Optimism intended to send 20 million OP to the crypto market maker Wintermute. However, a transaction mistake on Wintermute’s end involving layer 2 complexities cause them to lose access to the tokens.
• An attacker claimed the OP shortly afterward, and both Optimism’s and Wintermute’s attempts to communicate with him have led to no avail.
• Wintermute has taken full responsibility for the matter and even said they were impressed by the attacker’s performance.