Blockchain data shows that the recent, unintended recipient of 20 million OP tokens from Optimism has sent 1 million of those tokens to Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin.
According to Blockchain security firm PeckShield, the exploiter’s network address sent 1,000,000 OP to an address previously established as belonging to Vitalik.
The funds are worth about $874,000 at the time of writing. This comes after the exploiter had already sold another 1 million tokens prior to the Vitalik transaction.
Furthermore, the exploiter delegated the voting rights for the sent tokens to Yoav Weiss – a researcher at the Ethereum Foundation. Vitalik had previously delegated about 1700 tokens to the same person.
Optimism recently completed its airdrop of the OP token, providing OP to the earliest and most dedicated users of the layer 2 network. Over 50% of eligible addresses have now claimed their tokens.
On Wednesday, Optimism intended to send 20 million OP to the crypto market maker Wintermute. However, a transaction mistake on Wintermute’s end involving layer 2 complexities cause them to lose access to the tokens.
An attacker claimed the OP shortly afterward, and both Optimism’s and Wintermute’s attempts to communicate with him have led to no avail.
Wintermute has taken full responsibility for the matter and even said they were impressed by the attacker’s performance.