A whitehat helped unlock 1,003 ETH, worth about $2 million, from a 2016 HongCoin ICO contract after nine years. ETH trades near $2,009 on Ali Charts’ 3-day setup, with $2,073 as resistance an
A whitehat security researcher has helped unlock about 1,003 ETH, worth roughly $2 million, from a 2016 Ethereum ICO contract that trapped investor funds for nine years. The recovery involved HongCoin, also known as The HONG, an early token sale that failed to reach its funding target but failed to return all investor deposits.
The researcher, known online as Florent, said the contract should have refunded participants automatically after the sale missed its goal. However, a bug in the refund logic blocked many investors from claiming their ETH. As a result, the contract held funds that belonged to early Ethereum users long after the original project faded from active market attention.
Florent said 48 original investors can now claim their funds. The recovery required 41 unlock transactions, while seven holders already qualified for direct refunds due to smaller balances. Two investors have already claimed 96.5 ETH, worth about $193,000, after the funds became accessible again.
First white-hat exploit on Ethereum: I unlocked 1,003.62 Ξ ($2,000,000) trapped in a 2016 ICO smart contract for 9 years.
The 48 original investors can now claim their funds. pic.twitter.com/lyh5iyaDu7
— 0xflorent.eth (@0xFlorent_) May 31, 2026
The issue came from an old contract design. The refund function rejected holders whose token balances exceeded a global counter. Over time, earlier partial refunds reduced that counter to 356, which limited refunds to 3.56 ETH. Many remaining holders held more than that amount, so the contract blocked their claims.
Meanwhile, Ethereum faces fresh internal pressure as some community members question Vitalik Buterin’s leadership and the Ethereum Foundation’s direction. Recent updates show critics aiming for the network’s L2-first scaling strategy, Foundation spending, and weaker ETH performance this year.
Florent found a path through an admin function inside the HongCoin contract. That function had an integer overflow weakness, a common risk in older Solidity contracts before developers widely adopted SafeMath protections. With a specific input, the function resets a holder’s balance and allows the refund check to pass.
The researcher did not execute the recovery alone. The admin function only worked through the HongCoin multisig, so Florent contacted the team and tested the process on a Foundry mainnet fork. After verification, the team signed the unlock transactions itself. The full process took about one week.
Florent said the exploit did not allow a third party to steal the Ethereum. It only restored refund access for the original investors. That detail may explain why the contract stayed untouched for years, despite holding more than 1,000 ETH. A malicious attacker had little financial incentive, since the funds could only return to eligible claimants.
The recovery also shows how old Ethereum contracts can still hold active value. Florent recently built a scanner after setting up a self-hosted Ethereum node. The scanner flags contracts with more than 100 ETH, then allows manual review of possible recovery paths. In this case, that process led to one of Ethereum’s older stuck-fund recoveries.
Florent has also reported earlier recoveries. He unlocked 19.329 ETH from two older contracts, including a failed 2018 ICO and expired atomic swaps linked to a Liquality Wallet user.
Meanwhile, ETH trades under pressure on the 3-day chart shared by Ali Charts. ETH crypto is trading below $2,000 after losing the $2,073 support. The next marked downside level sits near $1,825, while $2,359 remains the higher resistance zone after sellers rejected the recent rebound.
ETH 3-Day Chart | Source: X
Ethereum price action now leaves ETH between short-term weakness and a deeper support test. A recovery above $2,073 could ease immediate pressure and bring $2,359 back into view. However, failure to reclaim that level keeps attention on $1,825, where buyers may need to defend the broader structure.
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