Crypto on-chain crime drama sees the good guys finally win

cointelegraph.com:

The stories about people getting their private keys hacked or stolen are nothing new, with a number losing their life savings because of these thefts. However, in quite an anti-climax scene, a crypto user managed to save their crypto holdings despite losing their private keys.

Harpie, an on-chain security firm, revealed an instance of on-chain crime drama where the good guys eventually won. One of the users in their Discord group reportedly raised concerns about the suspected theft of their private keys. When the firm looked into said customer’s wallet, someone was indeed trying to transfer funds from the victim’s accounts.

How did we do this?About a month ago, this user protected their tokens with Harpie.By approving and protecting their tokens with Harpie, this user gave us permission to intervene if we ever spotted a theft on their wallet.5/7 pic.twitter.com/33KYDKZeO1

However, the security group managed to act fast and move the victim’s funds to a noncustodial address before the hacker could transfer those funds. This contract allowed the victim to recover their lost tokens from a different, uncompromised wallet. The security firm was able to do so by offering a higher gas fee for transferring the victim’s address.

This was only possible because the victim protected their tokens with Harpie, allowing the security firm to intervene whenever a case of possible theft came to their attention. The firm said:

The on-chain security firm said that they have recovered about $700,000 worth of stolen funds and acts as an on-chain firewall for the community.

Related: 10,000 BTC moves off crypto wallet linked to Mt. Gox hack

While what Harpie did was all about timely intervention and required access to the user’s wallet, there have been