Coinbase, the largest US cryptocurrency exchange, has raked in $1 million in profit from the recent hack of DeFi platform Curve Finance.
The exchange has not yet returned the funds, which some argue belong to the victims of the hack, claiming that it is not obligated to do so.
The incident in question occurred in July when a hacker targeted Curve Finance, a major player in the DeFi market, resulting in the theft of $73 million worth of assets.
During the attack, the pricing system of Curve was disrupted, creating a unique arbitrage opportunity.
A trading bot recognized this opportunity and paid 570 ETH (equivalent to $1.06 million at the time) to ensure that its trade was processed quickly by an Ethereum blockchain validator.
This payment marked the second-largest ever made in what is known as "maximal extractable value" (MEV).
Coinbase happened to be the validator that received the payment, according to Alchemix, a platform that suffered losses during the Curve exploit, as well as data from Nansen, which confirmed the exchange as the recipient.
Although most of the $73 million stolen from Curve has been recovered, Alchemix, which lost $22 million in the hack, claims that Coinbase has refused requests to return the funds it obtained as a result of the incident.
Alchemix believes that Coinbase is effectively holding stolen money and has criticized the exchange for not showing any willingness to return the funds, despite directly benefiting from the exploit.
Coinbase, on the other hand, maintains that it is not legally obligated to reimburse anyone, as representatives of the exchange have reportedly informed Alchemix.
This situation underscores the dilemma between the principles of blockchain-based finance, which often rely on
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