Hacker mysteriously gives $20 million in stolen funds back to the US government

Blockchain analysts flagged mysterious transactions that happened between Thursday and Friday last week after a hacker broke into a cryptocurrency wallet owned by the US government, stole funds, and then promptly returned them the next day.

The strange string of events has got cryptocurrency analysts and undoubtedly the departments at the US government scratching their heads, especially considering how high profile this theft was. It began on Thursday when pseudonymous blockchain sleuth ZachXBT highlighted transactions showing millions of dollars being moved out of US government-owned cryptocurrency wallets. In total, about $19.3 million worth of funds were returned to the wallet last Friday, which was in the form of Ethereum (ETH) and the stablecoin USDC.

Where did the funds come from? Reports indicate the US government seized millions of dollars in cryptocurrency two years ago following the infamous Bitfinex hack in 2016. Only an hour after the wallet received its funds back did more transactions start occurring, but this time in smaller quantities. According to reports, funds started being moved to a wallet address beginning with "0x0Ca." After a small amount of Ethereum was sent to this wallet, $6.1 million of ETH was transferred, which was then followed by another $11.6 million worth of aUSDC, a version of the stablecoin that includes interest.

After the Friday transactions were made, the wallet appeared to be drained on Thursday. Unfortunately, the motivations behind the transactions remain unknown, but according to reports, this kind of behavior appears "nefarious."