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A pseudonymous security researcher known as 0xflorent helped recover about 1,003.62 ETH from a failed 2016 Ethereum ICO contract.
The Ether was worth roughly $2 million and had been trapped for nearly nine years. The recovered funds belonged to 48 original HongCoin investors whose refunds were blocked by a flaw in the contract’s refund logic.
48 HongCoin Investors Had Refunds Blocked
HongCoin was a 2016 token sale tied to a planned community-run investment fund. The project never launched after the ICO failed to reach its funding goal.
The contract was supposed to return investor ETH automatically, but a bug stopped the refund process from working. That left investor funds stuck inside the contract through several Ethereum market cycles.
Integer Overflow Opened 1,003.62 ETH Recovery Path
The recovery path came from an unpatched integer-overflow flaw in an admin function. 0xflorent worked with the HongCoin team and its multisig wallet holders to use the flaw to reset investor balances.
The reset allowed the team to bypass a broken refund cap that had blocked larger withdrawals. The path was used as a coordinated white-hat recovery, not as a theft.
41 Multisig Transactions Released Trapped ETH
The recovery process required 41 signed transactions from the HongCoin multisig.
That coordination was central to the recovery. The funds were not unlocked by a unilateral rescue, but through work with the original project team and wallet holders.
Two Investors Have Claimed 96.5 ETH
Two investors had already reclaimed a combined 96.5 ETH by the time the recovery became public. That amount was worth about $193,000.
Most of the unlocked ETH remained available for the remaining original HongCoin investors to claim. The recovery now leaves the main focus on whether the rest of the eligible participants complete their claims.
