Two days after DeFi project Euler Finance was exploited, with over $198 million stolen, the protocol has today sent a message to the hacker warning that it would launch a $1 million bounty for information that could lead to their arrest if they fail to return the funds in the next 24 hours.

On Tuesday, an attacker used a flash loan to steal $18 million in Wrapped Bitcoin, $8.6 million in Stablecoin DAI, $33.7 million in USDC, and another $137 million in Staked Ethereum.

While the management of Euler Finance says it’s working with the United States and British law enforcement agencies, it also confirms that the on-chain messages sent to the hacker are legitimate.

Euler Finance On-Chain Messages to the Attacker

After the hacker executed the first attack on Tuesday, Euler Finance wrote to the thief asking if they would be open to negotiating with the protocol on ‘any possible next steps’.

Hours later, the firm sent another message demanding the attacker return 90% of both ETH and DAI to EulerDAO treasury so that investigations would be halted and no further legal action would be taken. On Wednesday, Euler Finance sent another message carrying the same information.

With no reply from the attacker, the company took to Twitter to announce that it was considering engaging online forensics firms, Chainalysis, TRM Labs, and the Ethereum security community to assist in investigating and recovering the funds.

Will Authorities Level Charges Against the Euler Finance Attacker?

Despite Euler Finance deciding not to take any legal action against the attacker if they met the terms, the United States and United Kingdom law enforcement agencies and regulators may have other ideas.

In recent months, the US Department of Justice and several regulators have launched investigations and prosecuted individuals involved in crypto crimes. For example, late last year, the Justice Department, along with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the Security and Exchange Commission, filed charges against Mango Markets attacker Avraham Eisenberg for stealing over $112 million from the DeFi protocol.

Therefore, it appears likely that the Euler Finance attacker could face similar charges if arrested.