Cypher Protocol Contributor Admits to Stealing $260K to Gamble

A core contributor to the Solana exchange Cypher Protocol has stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars to fuel their gambling addiction. The thief, hoak, eventually admitted to the wrongdoing, saying that they don’t expect to be forgiven.

Hoak’s crime came to light when another Cypher contributor by the nickname Barrett alleged that the former person had an account that had withdrawn various amounts of Ether, Bonk and Wrapped Solana on 36 occassions. In total, $260,000 of the $1 million the project had recovered from a $1 million exploit last year had been siphoned into hoak’s account.

For context, the exploiter had, in August 2023, pilfered $1 million of crypto. Luckily, the protocol managed to freeze $600,000 of the currencies and later created a plan to return the stolen funds to its users.

Barrett expressed their disappointment in hoak.

I never thought this would be a possibility, having a core contributor who stayed on after the exploit to try and rebuild the project be the one who rugged funds from the redemption contract.

Barrett

Barrett added that hoak’s actions have been reported to the authorities.

Hoak Admitted to Taking the Money

Hoak responded to the allegations, admitting to having stolen the money. In a post on X, they said that they used the money to gamble, revealing that they have been struggling with a crippling gambling addiction.

Hoak attributed the addiction to stress and a variety of psychological factors that went by unchecked for too long. Hoak noted that they were consumed by all the things they let pile up in their head. The contributor noted that this caused them to distance themselves from their loved ones, fail to meet deadlines and exhibit erratic behavior.

Eventually, hoak started gambling and resorted to taking money from the project they were working on. In summary, the contributor said:

TLDR: I fucked up way too hard, way too many times. I don’t expect anyone to forgive me or let this go unpunished.

Hoak

In other news, a Hawaiian man was recently jailed after defrauding 45 victims out of a total of $1.2 million.