Oasis Exploits Its Own Wallet Software to Seize Crypto Stolen in Wormhole Hack

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) platform Oasis said Friday it seized assets tied to last year’s $140 million exploit of the Wormhole bridge and returned them to an “authorized third party” after being ordered to do so by a British court.

In a blog post, Oasis, which develops multi-signature wallet software into which the hacker deposited funds, said whitehats recently notified it of “a previously unknown vulnerability in the design of the admin multisig access.” Following a Feb. 21 order from the High Court of England and Wales, it exploited that vulnerability to take back the funds.

“We stress that this access was there with the sole intention to protect user assets in the event of any potential attack, and would have allowed us to move quickly to patch any vulnerability disclosed to us,” Oasis said.

It said it returned the funds to an “authorized third party.” A Blockworks article that preceded Oasis’ blog post identified Jump Crypto – developer of Wormhole – as the owner of the wallets that received the seized funds.

Jump Crypto did not immediately comment.