The individual responsible for the infamous $320 million Wormhole Bridge exploit in 2022 initially qualified for an airdrop, potentially gaining access to $50,000 worth of newly launched W tokens.
According to findings unveiled by pseudonymous researcher Pland in a post dated April 4th, the Wormhole team initially overlooked excluding several wallet addresses associated with the exploit, allowing them to be temporarily eligible for the airdrop.
Wormhole, known for its cross-chain protocol facilitating token transfers across various blockchain networks, fell victim to hackers in February 2022, resulting in the loss of 120,000 wETH tokens valued at $321 million. This incident marked one of the most significant DeFi attacks of the year, with hackers exchanging wETH tokens for various cryptocurrencies including Ethereum, SOL, USDC, APE, and SX.
In a subsequent turn of events, Jump Crypto and Oasis.app orchestrated a “counter exploit” in February 2023, successfully recovering and returning $225 million worth of digital assets linked to the Wormhole protocol hacker.
Recent reports indicated that four wallet addresses associated with the hackers were momentarily able to claim Wormhole’s airdrop. However, subsequent investigations revealed that these addresses were no longer eligible, suggesting prompt action by the Wormhole team to rectify the oversight.
In a separate announcement on April 3, Wormhole disclosed plans for an airdrop of over 675 million new Wormhole (W) tokens, valued at approximately $850 million, to eligible users. This airdrop aims to reward early participants across Solana, Ethereum, and compatible chains, with a significant portion allocated for community and ecosystem distribution.
Notably, the W token features governance functionality, allowing holders to participate in governance votes by delegating their tokens on Solana or compatible Ethereum-based chains, marking a pioneering step in multichain governance.
Following its launch, the W token experienced a surge in price to $1.66 before encountering a notable decline, currently resting at $1.31. Despite this volatility, the token’s market capitalization briefly peaked at nearly $3 billion, positioning it among the top 100 digital assets by market capitalization according to CoinGecko data.