On July 9, a hacker stole nearly $42 million worth of coins from GMX. After the theft, the hacker left a message on the blockchain saying, “Okay, the funds will be returned later.” Then, within an hour, the hacker started returning the stolen funds.
GMX Exploiter 2
The current price of each GMX coin is about $13, which is a decentralized exchange on the Arbitrum network. Mainly, the hacker manipulated the price of GLP tokens and withdrew funds from GMX’s v1 liquidity pool. This was monitored by the blockchain security firm PeckShield.
This hacker is known as GMX Exploiter 2. In the first phase, he returned Ether (ETH) worth more than $9 million.
Blockchain security firm PeckShield reported that later the hacker sent an additional $5.5 million worth of FRAX tokens to the GMX team. Then, in another transaction, the hacker sent $5 million worth of FRAX tokens to GMX’s address. Altogether, the hacker returned about $20 million worth of cryptocurrency.
What Happened After this Attack
Right after the attack on July 9, the exchange announced on social media X that if the hacker returned the stolen funds, he would receive a $5 million reward, which is about 12.5% of the stolen funds.
They also stated that this incident would be considered a White Hat Hack and the hacker would not face any legal trouble.
The GMX team also mentioned that if the hacker wanted, they would provide proof of the source of the funds so that he could use the bounty. Along with this, they gave the hacker a 48-hour deadline to accept the offer. They stated that if the hacker did not respond within 48 hours, they would take legal action.
The crypto exchange also stated that if the hacker wished, he could keep 10% of the stolen funds as a white hat bounty, but under the condition that he must return the remaining 90% to a specific address.
After GMX posted this tweet on X, the hacker started returning the funds within an hour. This shows that the hacker accepted GMX’s offer and their bounty.
Crypto World Exploiter
Nowadays, as technology advances, hackers spread across different countries are also becoming more modern. Especially black hat hackers now keep a close eye on the crypto market. Although white hat hackers always try to keep this market secure and give advice, in today’s crypto world, these types of exploits have become quite common. Hackers often manipulate oracles or internal data to reduce token prices, allowing them to swap tokens at distorted prices and easily withdraw large sums of funds.
On June 26, 2025, ResupplyFi also fell victim to such an attack, where they lost $9.6 million. There, too, the hacker manipulated the value of crvUSD, bringing the exchange rate with reUSD down to zero. As a result, the hacker was able to collect assets almost for free.
Conclusion
Just as there are advantages in the crypto market, there are also disadvantages. We must always move carefully in the crypto market. We need to maintain the security of our exchanges, wallets, and coins on our own responsibility. Especially, we must be very cautious when investing in crypto.
