Antonio Juliano, the founder of the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol dYdX, is actively working to uncover the origin of a $9 million insurance fund loss that occurred on November 17. Amid suspicions of an exit scam, Juliano emphasized that the dYdX chain remained secure, and the incident was isolated to the v3 chain, specifically impacting the Yearn.finance token market.

Juliano made it clear that dYdX has no intention of negotiating with the attackers responsible for the exploit. Instead, the protocol aims to reward community members who contribute to the investigation. In a statement, Juliano declared, "We will not pay bounties to, or negotiate with the attacker. We and others have made significant progress in identifying the attacker. We are currently in the process of reporting the information we have to the FBI."

The founder highlighted that the compromised v3 chain has central components that may be accountable for the security breach. The incident led to a 43% drop in the value of the YFI token on November 17, sparking concerns of an exit scam within the crypto community.

The exploit targeted long positions in YFI tokens on the exchange, resulting in the liquidation of nearly $38 million in positions. This event significantly contributed to the YFI token's price decline, causing a market capitalization loss of over $300 million and intensifying suspicions of an insider job.

While security breaches in DeFi are not uncommon, dYdX is distinguishing itself by relying on community assistance to identify the culprits rather than directly rewarding the exploiters with bounties. This approach underscores dYdX's commitment to transparency and collaboration within the broader crypto community.