TrustedVolumes attacker returns $2M, keeps another $2M as bounty

A TrustedVolumes attacker has returned 1,122 ETH worth about $2 million while keeping another $2 million as a self-declared bounty.

Summary

• The TrustedVolumes attacker returned 1,122 ETH worth about $2 million.
• The exploiter retained another $2 million as a self-declared bounty.
• Blockaid traced the May attack to TrustedVolumes’ custom RFQ swap proxy.

According to Com Feed monitoring, the Ethereum transfer represents a partial recovery from the May exploit, which initially drained about $5.87 million from a contract controlled by the liquidity provider. The attacker has retained roughly the same dollar amount as the returned funds, labeling it a bounty.

At the time of writing, TrustedVolumes had not formally confirmed that it had accepted the attacker’s bounty terms.

Partial repayment recovers only part of the stolen funds

TrustedVolumes disclosed in May that the total loss had reached roughly $6.7 million, exceeding the initial estimate reported by security researchers. The company said at that time the stolen assets were held across three addresses containing approximately $3 million, $3 million, and $700,000.

Seeking to recover the assets, TrustedVolumes offered to discuss a vulnerability bounty and what it called a mutually acceptable solution. The liquidity provider also invited the attacker to begin constructive communication, though its statement did not specify a proposed bounty rate.

Before the stolen tokens were consolidated, Blockaid identified 1,291.16 WETH, 206,282 USDT, 16.939 WBTC, and 1.27 million USDC among the drained assets. PeckShield later reported that the attacker exchanged the tokens and gathered the proceeds into about 2,513 ETH.

The returned 1,122 ETH was worth about $2 million at the time of writing, while Com Feed valued the attacker’s retained bounty at a similar amount. The combined dollar value is lower than the original loss because ETH has fallen since the May exploit, when the stolen assets were converted into the cryptocurrency.

Custom TrustedVolumes proxy caused the security breach

As previously reported by crypto.news, Blockaid traced the May 7 attack to a custom request-for-quote swap proxy operated by TrustedVolumes. According to the security firm, the attacker targeted the company’s Ethereum resolver setup rather than a regular 1inch swap route.

TrustedVolumes used the RFQ system to quote token prices and complete signed trades from its inventory. Verichains found that a public function lacked access controls, allowing the attacker to register an address as an approved order signer and create transactions that appeared valid to the proxy.

During the same transaction, the attacker directed the proxy to pull WETH, WBTC, USDT, and USDC from the TrustedVolumes inventory vault. Verichains also identified a mismatch between the address checked for authorization and the address supplying the tokens, while faulty replay protection failed to record orders correctly.

Although the affected market maker supplied liquidity through 1inch, the attack did not compromise 1inch’s core aggregation contracts or standard user routes, according to 1inch’s account of the incident. Blockaid linked the wallet to the March 2025 Fusion V1 exploit but reported that the May attack used a different flaw tied to TrustedVolumes’ custom proxy.