Purported whitehats have returned about 85% of the Bitcoin drained from Liquid’s federation wallet — roughly 3,400 BTC, or about $269.2 million — while still holding about 598.5 BTC.
This is a follow-up to Liquid’s weekend security incident. For the first report — Ledger CTO’s ~4,000 BTC peg-out stamp and Liquid’s SideSwap PAK path — see Liquid bridge peg-out.
Return stamps
The weekend drain is stamped at 4,000 BTC (roughly $320 million), about 95% of Liquid’s reserves on that page. The group that posted the OP_RETURN whitehat message returned 3,400 BTC to the federation multisig after demanding a Blockstream patch as a prerequisite. There is still no communication from the group or Blockstream on the fate of the remaining 598.5 BTC.
Peg-out still frozen
Bridge nodes remain disabled and the peg-out system stays frozen. Bitfinex and Aqua wallet have suspended L-BTC deposits and withdrawals. Liquid-based USDT and RWAs were unaffected by the original incident.
Depeg risk
If the remaining deficit stays uncovered, L-BTC could trade at a discount to Bitcoin and trigger capital flight — attributed risk on that page. Liquid Network’s last communication on that page remains that federation members are working to resolve the issue; Blockstream CEO Adam Back had not commented there.
Also see: Strategy Inc 8-K: No Bitcoin Buys Aug 31–Sep 7 as Board Doubles Preferred Buyback Cap to $2B.
Informational only. Not trading advice, signals, or a guarantee of any market outcome.
Written and fact-checked with AI assistance, reviewed by a human editor before publication.
