“YOUR ESSAYS ARE VERY CONVINCING WHILE YOUR ACTIONS ARE SHOWING YOUR DISTRUST, WHAT A FUNNY GAME,” the attacker, identified on the blockchain-tracking website Etherscan as “Poly Network Exploiter 1,” wrote Wednesday in a Ethereum transaction message field.

The story is already dragging into its second week, as executives behind the project plead with the attacker to return the looted funds from the Aug 10 attack. They have created a destination account for the return of the funds, but it requires multiple signatures to unlock the funds, and the attacker’s cooperation is much needed.

“I AM NOT READY TO PUBLISH THE KEY IN THIS WEEK,” the attacker wrote in a message.

In what appeared to be a reply, a subsequent message posted on Ethereum and signed “Poly Network Team” said that “we still hope you can provide the key to us this week, because thousands of users are waiting to get their assets back.”

“The sooner the asset recovery can be carried out, the more negative emotions will be avoided,” the message read. “We are unlikely to get a proper rest until we fully return the user assets.”

The Polygon Network negotiators have referred to the attacker as “Mr. White Hat” – ostensibly a reference to a “white hat” hacker who tries to exploit vulnerabilities in a protocol to help expose and ultimately fix bugs or loopholes in the underlying code, instead of doing it for malicious purpose.

Bounty Payment the Reason for Delay?
Poly Network team promised to send the attacker a $500,000 bounty for helping to identify a vulnerability in the protocol.

And in the message on Wednesday, the Poly Network Team address wrote that “we still decided to go ahead and transfer 160 ETH” to an address associated with the attacker. The dollar equivalent of 160 units of ether (ETH) works out to roughly $500,000.

But as of press time, it is uncertain if the bounty transfer had been made.

CoinDesk contacted Poly Network officials, but did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

The transparency of blockchain data has turned the back-and-forth negotiations between the attacker and Poly Network team into a surprisingly suspenseful drama playing out in public.

Several cryptocurrency users have sent dozens of complimentary messages to the attacker pleading for a share of the loot, and some of them have even used the Ethereum blockchain to send small increments of cryptocurrency as tips.

Source: Plot Thickens: Poly Network Hacker Threatens to Delay Return of Funds – Fintechs.fi