So, the OlympusDAO got hacked, and the whole thing has big "got your nose...just kidding" energy.

A few hours after stealing ~$300k in funds, the hacker returned it all.

Instead of talking about how the hack happened, let's cover why someone would return such stolen funds.

The first, and most likely reason (in this case), is that they were a white hat hacker.

A "white hat hacker" is kind of like Superman, to a "black hat hacker's" Lex Luthor - they use their (hacking) powers for good.

If they were white hats, the individual or group involved in the exploit probably did it to expose the vulnerability, allow OlympusDAO to fix it (scaring the living daylights out of them), and then returned the funds.

Another reason is that the person or team behind the hack may have gotten spooked, and returned the funds in good conscience.

All major exchanges abide by the ‘know your customer’ laws; and once you’ve stolen funds, it’s not that easy to transfer into cash without your identity being released.

Accounts with stolen funds get frozen, and details of the documentation for those accounts get subpoenaed - so the hackers may have realized it would be too hard to get away with it, and returned the funds.

Thirdly, the hackers may have made a deal with OlympusDAO.

Olympus has a bounty program that’s worth up to $3.33M USD currently available on Immunify. Which means OlumypusDAO have put aside north of $3M which they’re happy to provide to white hat hackers.

(All in the name of higher security).

So, while it’s not clear as to why the OlympusDAO hackers returned the funds, it’s probably something to do with one, some, or all of the above.