Crypto market maker wintermute_t accepted responsibility for the theft of 20 million optimismPBC tokens because it sent the wrong wallet address to Optimism to receive them. Skesslr reports.
, Optimism’s team explained that it sent 20 million OP tokens to crypto market makers Wintermute two weeks ago in preparation for the much-hyped OP token airdrop.
An opportunity for attack came when Wintermute gave the wrong wallet address to Optimism. The money was supposed to be held in a multi-signature wallet belonging to the Wintermute team, but the address provided by Wintermute was for a wallet on Ethereum, whereas it should have been an address on Optimism.
The attacker cashed out 1 million of the stolen OP tokens into Ethereum, and it then transferred those funds to an unknown address via Tornado Cash, a tool that allows people to send and receive funds with a scrambled source.