In a recent X post dated April 4, it was revealed that the hackers responsible for the notorious Wormhole Bridge attack of 2022, initially believed to be eligible for a $320 million airdrop, will only receive $50,000 worth of the newly launched W tokens.
An anonymous researcher going by the name Pland asserted that the Wormhole team overlooked excluding certain wallet addresses associated with a vulnerability exploited during the 2022 attack, enabling hackers to steal $321 million worth of cryptocurrency from the cross-chain bridge.
A Solana-based airdrop checker called Airdrop.link, referenced by Degen News in an April 4 post on X, confirmed that four wallet addresses linked to the vulnerability were briefly able to claim Wormhole airdrops. Should the hackers opt to claim the airdrop, they stand to receive approximately 31,642 Wormhole (W) tokens, equivalent to around $50,000 based on current market prices.
While Cointelegraph independently verified the wallet addresses on Airdrop.link, it was found that they are no longer eligible, indicating that the Wormhole team likely rectified the oversight promptly.
All four eligible wallet addresses were identified by the Solana block explorer Solana.fm as associated with the 2022 Wormhole vulnerability. The exploit, which occurred in February 2022, resulted in losses of up to $321 million, marking one of the largest hacks in crypto history. However, in February 2023, a counter-exploitation effort led by Web3 infrastructure company Jump Crypto and DeFi platform Oasis.app successfully recovered $225 million in digital assets from the Wormhole exploiters, subsequently returning them to secure wallets.
On April 3, Wormhole announced its intention to airdrop over 675 million new Wormhole (W) tokens, valued at approximately $850 million at current prices, to eligible users.
