A total of $2 million in Ether has been recovered from a malfunctioning smart contract linked to the Hong Coin initial coin offering (ICO), which began on August 29, 2016, and concluded on October 28, 2016. The refund was facilitated by a white hat hacker known as 0xflorent, who identified a flaw in the contract's admin function.
Investors had been waiting nearly a decade for their funds after the ICO did not meet its financial targets. The smart contract was designed to automatically refund investors, but a bug disrupted this functionality, locking up approximately 1,003 ETH from 48 investors.
Following collaboration with the original creators, 0xflorent demonstrated how to exploit the vulnerability, allowing for the release of the trapped funds. Individual refunds have already begun, with one investor receiving 96 ETH, valued at around $192,500, and another receiving 0.5 ETH.