Sometimes stealing crypto is the moral choice – TechCrunch

Image credit: TechCrunch

The crypto world moves fast, and sometimes, when there’s a heist in progress, the best thing tech-savvy but ethically sound users can do is join the looting. That’s what happened this week when the Nomad token bridge started to collapse and white hat hackers were left trying to steal crypto from the exchange as fast as they could (to later return).

Hello and welcome back to Chain reaction podcast, where we unpack and explain the latest crypto news, drama and trends, breaking it down block by block for the crypto curious. This week we welcomed a new co-host (senior TC+ reporter Jacquie Melinek), and we delved into Robinhood layoffs, the Solana wallet hack drama, and the big Nomad brother heist.

Ethical hackers aren’t often forced to make quick decisions to steal millions of dollars from a crypto project, but in the wild west of the web3, sometimes the best thing to do when something goes wrong is to fill up your bag. As onlookers watched in horror as the $190 million Nomad token bridge collapsed, some jumped to the rescue and replicated the exploit black hat hackers used to steal more funds from the project.

Many chronicled their theft in real time on Twitter and promised to return the money to refund user funds. Although this hack was quite disastrous for all parties involved, nearly 10% of the total stolen funds have been returned to the exchange so far, with one white hat hacker returning as much as $4 million.

Alongside the Nomad hack, we also delved quite deeply into the less expensive but potentially more terrifying hack of the Solana wallet infrastructure that caused thousands of users to mysteriously lose their funds. We also talked about the latest struggles of Robinhood, which laid off nearly a quarter of its staff this week.

For loyal listeners, you will notice a big change this week. There is no interview! Going forward, we’ll be splitting our news analysis and interview segments into different episodes, so every Tuesday you can hear us sit down with a crypto expert, and every Thursday we’ll release an episode discussing the latest crypto news. Early next week, stay tuned for an interview with Uniswap’s MC Lader as we discuss the divergent worlds of centralized and decentralized finance in crypto.

Chain Reaction podcast episodes come out every Tuesday and Thursday at 12:00 PM PDT. Subscribe to us on Apple, Spotify or your alternative podcast platform to keep up with us every week.