In the second episode of Contentious Crypto, Christopher Pease and Megan Elms, along with Kalo guest speaker James Drury, explain what steps they took to secure a successful recovery for their clientin the landmark BVI case of ChainSwap v Persons Unknown.

Key takeaways:

• How the exploit of a smart contract enabled a hacker to misappropriate a substantial number of tokens from ChainSwap’s users.
• How ChainSwap, Harneys, and Kalo were able to use blockchain explorers to identify what the hackers had done with the misappropriated tokens.
• The practical steps that can be taken to recover certain tokens, which have a functionality that allows tokens in the wallets of hackers, or other wrongdoers, to be burned and an equivalent number of the same tokens re-issued to those that suffered the loss.
• How tokens were laundered by the hackers by using a mixer fund, Tornado Cash, and how the tokens were traced through the mixer and into a wallet that interacted with a centralised exchange that held KYC on the hackers.
• ChainSwap’s claims and the other legal actions it took to make a recovery and to identify the wrongdoers behind the hacking.
• And, of course, the ultimate outcome of the case (spoiler alert: the hackers capitulated)!