Crypto Market Maker Wintermute Pays Off $96M TrueFi Debt Weeks After Being Hacked

Prominent crypto market maker Wintermute paid off its $96 million debt on decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol TrueFi, TrueFi’s loan dashboard shows, just about three weeks after being hacked for $160 million.

The TrueFi loan was one of the firm's largest outstanding known debts owed to a DeFi lending platform. Wintermute took out a $92 million loan on the TrueFi protocol from its USDT lending pool in April, which was due to mature Oct. 15.

Wintermute repaid the loan with interest Friday, one day before the deadline, transaction data on blockchain data platform Nansen shows.

The loan was uncollateralized, meaning that the borrower didn’t pledge any assets against the loan, securing it only by its financial standing and reputation. Market makers and trading firms often take out these types of loans for trading purposes.

The news comes after Wintermute's DeFi operation suffered a $160 million hack in late September, one of the largest hacks in recent months. At the time, Wintermute’s outstanding DeFi debt amounted to $200 million, CoinDesk reported earlier. Evgeny Gaevoy, the firm’s CEO, said then that the company remained solvent after the hack.

Earlier this week, Blockwater, a Korean trading firm, defaulted on a loan on TrueFi after missing payment on a $3.6 million loan. TrueFi said that it determined “a potential court-supervised administrative proceeding would lead to a better outcome” to recover the assets to lenders.

Read more: October Becomes Worst Month for Crypto Hacks