The hacker responsible for the $320 million exploit of the Wormhole bridge in 2022 was initially eligible for an airdrop of $50,000 in W tokens. However, an investigation revealed that the Wormhole team overlooked excluding several wallet addresses associated with the exploit. Wormhole is a cross-chain protocol that allows users to send and receive crypto between multiple blockchains without the use of a centralized exchange. The exploit occurred in February 2022 when hackers compromised the Wormhole Bridge, leading to a significant loss of crypto assets. Despite this, Wormhole rewarded a white hacker with $10 million for fixing a bug in their core bridge contract.
In February 2023, Jump Crypto and Oasis.app executed a “counter exploit” on the hackers, successfully recovering $225 million in digital assets. Recently, four wallet addresses linked to the hackers were temporarily able to claim Wormhole’s airdrop. If the hacker had claimed the airdrop, they would have received approximately $50,000 worth of tokens. However, it was later revealed that the hacker wallet addresses were no longer eligible for the airdrop, indicating that the oversight had been swiftly addressed by the Wormhole team.
On April 3, Wormhole announced an airdrop of over 675 million new W tokens worth $850 million to eligible users. More than 400,000 wallets were eligible to participate in claiming the tokens, with 617.3 million W tokens allocated for the initial community and ecosystem airdrop. The W token has governance functionality, allowing holders to participate in governance votes by delegating their tokens on Solana or any compatible Ethereum-based chains. The W token initially surged to a price of $1.66 before experiencing a decline to $1.31, with a market capitalization of nearly $2.4 billion, positioning it as the 54th largest digital asset by market capitalization.
The hacker responsible for the Wormhole exploit in 2022 was temporarily eligible for an airdrop of $50,000 in W tokens due to an oversight by the Wormhole team. Despite the significant loss of crypto assets in the exploit, Wormhole rewarded a white hacker with $10 million for fixing a bug in their core bridge contract. In February 2023, a “counter exploit” on the hackers by Jump Crypto and Oasis.app successfully recovered $225 million in digital assets. Solana-based airdrop checker Airdrop.link identified four wallet addresses linked to the hackers as temporarily eligible to claim the airdrop.
Wormhole announced an airdrop of over 675 million new W tokens worth $850 million to eligible users on April 3. The W token has governance functionality, allowing holders to participate in governance votes by delegating their tokens on compatible chains. Following the launch of the W token, its price surged to $1.66 before declining to $1.31, with a market capitalization of nearly $2.4 billion. The distribution of W tokens aims to reward early users across Solana, Ethereum, and other compatible chains, as well as various crypto communities.
