On-chain ransom negotiations show ShibaSwap hacker refuses low-price ransom

Jinse Finance reported that last Friday, $2.8 million worth of crypto tokens (mainly dog-themed) were stolen from ShibaSwap, including approximately 25 billion KNINE tokens from the liquidity staking protocol K9 Finance. K9 hopes to recover these tokens and is willing to pay a bounty to the hacker. Last Monday, an address labeled "k9dev.eth" contacted the "Dear Shibarium Bridge hacker" on-chain, offering a bounty of 5 Ethereum in exchange for the stolen KNINE tokens. The K9 team likely made this move because they are eager to avoid the hacker dumping such a large amount of KNINE tokens, which could cause its price to plummet to nearly zero. The message also included a bounty contract address to facilitate the transaction and warned that "the bounty will start to decrease after seven days" to apply pressure. However, the hacker did not accept such a low offer, responding: "I cannot accept 5 Ethereum." The hacker countered by stating that the ransom should be no less than 50 ETH (about $225,000), adding: "Let me know when you are willing to pay this price."