The Shiba Inu development team has issued its last bounty bid to the hacker behind the recent Shibarium bridge exploit. The team now proposes a 25 ETH bounty for the return of stolen tokens. This is the third and the last effort in bargaining with the hacker.
The standoff has played out entirely on-chain through the Ethereum blockchain. Every message between the developers and the attacker remains publicly visible. K9 Finance DAO initially offered 5 ETH as a white hat bounty. The hacker rejected this proposal and countered with a demand for 50 ETH.
A second offer of 20 ETH followed through a deployed smart contract. The attacker also declined this amount. The development team has now increased the bounty to 25 ETH, but made clear that no further negotiations will occur.
The message attached to the latest proposal combines urgency with a stern warning. Developers emphasized that the Shiba Inu team itself backs this offer, not just K9 DAO. The stolen tokens remain blacklisted across the ecosystem. This renders them effectively worthless to the attacker.
“The blacklisted tokens are currently useless to you, and we could easily move on,” the team stated. “You’ve taken real money from hardworking people who trusted the Shib ecosystem. Do the smart thing and collect what you can. We are ready to walk away.”
Recovery Efforts and Security Response
Lead developer Shytoshi Kusama confirmed the establishment of a “war room” following the September attack. A dedicated team coordinates all recovery efforts for the compromised assets. The initiative demonstrates the project’s commitment to protecting user funds.
The reward contract operates on a trustless basis to ensure secure fund recovery. The hacker must approve the contract to transfer the frozen KNINE tokens before claiming the bounty. This mechanism prevents any potential payment disputes.
Affected users continue to wait for updates on their stolen assets. The development team has not yet announced a timeline for potential reimbursements. The focus remains on recovering the funds through the bounty offer.
Shibarium Network Enhancements
The Shibarium team has implemented multiple security upgrades since the breach. These measures aim to prevent similar attacks and eliminate single points of failure. The network underwent a temporary shutdown to facilitate these improvements.
Developers disabled the legacy RPC endpoint as part of the security overhaul. New anti-hack protocols were integrated during this period. The endpoint served as a potential vulnerability that required immediate attention.