People who invested in HongCoin back then probably forgot about that money; the white hat bounty was an unexpected bonus.

BlockBeats reports: Security researcher Florent discovered that nearly 1003 ETH were locked in the HongCoin ICO contract in 2016 for nearly nine years. Due to the refund function being limited by a global counter, it was difficult to return funds to investors. Florent collaborated with the HongCoin team, using the admin mint function to enable 48 original investors to get refunds. The entire process took about a week and was signed off by the team. Currently, two investors have retrieved 96.5 ETH, and they are willing to award Florent a white hat bounty. Florent pointed out that such old contracts do not have major vulnerabilities, and white hats help protect the ecosystem. He also frequently scans old contracts with high holdings for recovery.