Verus Network Recovers $8.5 Million After Reaching 75% Settlement and Bounty Agreement with Bridge Attacker

An attacker connected to the recent exploit of the Verus network has returned 4,052.4 ETH, worth approximately $8.5 million, back to the project’s wallet. The transfer occurred on Thursday following a negotiated settlement framework proposed by the platform’s core contributors. According to onchain data cited by blockchain security firm PeckShield, the returned amount represents 75% of the total assets drained from the Verus-Ethereum bridge. The remaining 1,350 ETH, valued at roughly $2.8 million, stayed in the attacker’s wallet as an agreed-upon bounty, with the attacker subsequently moving those remaining funds to a new wallet address.

The return of the assets came just hours after the Verus team outlined specific terms to the attacker in a Thursday post on X. The team stated that returning the 4,052.4 ETH within a 24-hour window would prompt the community to halt all ongoing investigations, refrain from pressing legal charges, and decline to pursue any extralegal action. In their public post, the contributors promised to issue a public acknowledgment referencing the 1,350 ETH and explicitly state that the community considers those funds to be a legitimate bounty. As of press time, the Verus team had not officially acknowledged the receipt of the returned funds, and requests for comment went unanswered.

The initial exploit of the Verus-Ethereum bridge occurred on May 18 at 11:55 p.m. UTC, according to a corporate Discord announcement. During the breach, the attacker successfully drained ETH, USDC, and tBTC directly from the Ethereum contract. Onchain security platform Blockaid initially estimated the total losses at $11.58 million. Providing a more granular breakdown, PeckShield reported that the bridge was drained of 103.6 tBTC, 1,625 ETH, and 147,000 USDC, all of which the attacker later consolidated and swapped for 5,402 ETH, then valued at about $11.4 million.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the Verus team shifted its focus toward hardening the bridge against future vulnerabilities and conducting additional smart contract auditing. Operating as a decentralized community without any venture capital backing, the team is concurrently developing a comprehensive plan to address the remaining fund losses and fully secure the network’s ecosystem moving forward.