Developer White Hat Unlocks Million-Dollar Assets from 2016 ICO Contract

According to The Block, security researcher Florent successfully unlocked approximately 1,003 ETH (valued at roughly $2 million) that had been locked for nearly a decade in the 2016 HongCoin ICO smart contract, using a white-hat vulnerability. The contract’s refund function had remained nonfunctional for years due to the absence of overflow protection in the legacy Solidity version used. Florent collaborated with the HongCoin team to reset token balances via an admin function, completing the process in about one week. Currently, 48 original investors are eligible to claim the unfrozen funds; two have already claimed a total of 96.5 ETH and voluntarily paid Florent a white-hat reward. Florent stated that this unlock was purely a technical exploration and that he charged no fees or commissions.