Trusted Volumes Hacker Returns 1,122 ETH, Keeps $2M Bounty

The article reports that a hacker tied to the Trusted Volumes exploit returned 1,122 ETH, recovering about $2 million in funds while reportedly keeping another roughly $2 million as a bounty-style settlement. The original May 7 exploit drained around $5.9 million via a signature-check bypass in the protocol’s RFQ swap proxy. While the partial return reduces losses and is positive for users, the piece emphasizes that the security incident is not fully resolved. It highlights persistent DeFi risks, where recovery often depends on on-chain tracing and informal negotiation rather than traditional legal recovery. Market impact is mainly sentiment-driven for Ethereum and the broader DeFi sector: fund recovery helps slightly, but the exploit underscores ongoing smart-contract vulnerability risk and may weigh on trust in DeFi protocols until a clear post-mortem and fixes are released.