Crypto Billionaire Proposes Straight Talks With Suspected North Korea-Linked Hacker Behind $290 Million DeFi Exploit: 'How Much You Want'

Tron (CRYPTO: TRX) founder Justin Sun proposed on Sunday a negotiation with the hacker behind the $290 million exploit of KelpDAO’s liquid restaking protocol.

Sun Attempts Direct Communication With Hacker

Sun addressed the KelpDAO hacker directly on X, asking, “How much you want? Let's just talk.”

The cryptocurrency billionaire contended that it’s unwise to let KelpDAO and other decentralized finance platforms, such as Aave (CRYPTO: AAVE), collapse from the hack. They also told the attacker it is not easy to spend or move loot on that kind of scale.

What Really Happened?

The hacker targeted a cross-chain bridge, powered by interoperability protocol LayerZero, and stole roughly $290 million in restaked Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH).

LayerZero blamed the theft on a “highly sophisticated state actor,” believed to be North Korea’s Lazarus Group.

Ripples Through Broader DeFi

KelpDAO said it had paused rsETH contracts across the mainnet and several Layer-2 blockchains while investigating alongside its auditors and security experts.

However, the contagion began to spread to the broader decentralized finance.

According to Lookonchain, the exploiter borrowed roughly $195 million in ETH on Aave using the stolen rsETH collateral, creating “bad debt” on the lending protocol.

As a result, major whales have begun withdrawing funds from the platform, slashing its total value locked from $26.39 billion to $17.94 billion in just two days, according to DeFiLlama.

Photo Courtesy: ozrimoz on Shutterstock.com