Millions In 'Misplaced' Funds Stuck On Bridge Contracts, One Linked To Vitalik Buterin: Arkham

Some of the largest cryptocurrency whales in decentralized finance (DeFi) may have "misplaced" millions of their funds in at least two significant bridge contracts, prominent blockchain intelligence firm Arkham Intelligence revealed.

"There are dozens of accounts with 6-7 figures stuck in bridge contracts, forgotten about," the company said. "If you're on this list, you may have misplaced a few million dollars. Don't worry – it happens."

Some of the addresses include "prominent DeFi whales" Arkham said, noting that there is "an account connected with" Vitalik Buterin, the co-founder of the Ethereum blockchain network. As per Arkham data, one of the wallets are also linked to crypto exchange giant Coinbase.

Crypto bridge contracts allow global users to migrate their digital assets across different blockchain networks, improving overall liquidity and helping promote cooperation among blockchains.

Arkham went on to reveal that a wallet associated with Bofur Capital has around over a million worth of wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) stuck in the Arbitrum bridge for two years and three months – the said amount now worth nearly $2 million.

The Buterin-linked wallet has $1.05 million worth of Ether (ETH) that has been on the Optimism bridge for seven months. The said amount is a far cry from Buterin's $795 million ETH treasury, but for some non-whales, it's a significant stash to actually forget.

Coinbase, which tried to bridge $75,000 worth of the USD Coin (USDC) to ETH, has had the funds stuck on the Optimism bridge contract for six months now, Arkham noted.

Thomasg.eth, the pseudonymous founder of decentralized air transportation solution Arrow, has some $800,000 waiting on the Arbitrum bridge for nearly two years now, something that "happens to everyone," the blockchain activity tracker said.

Non-fungible token (NFT) user identified by Arkham as @Mike_Macdonald on X, has some $117,000 on the Arbitrum bridge that has been waiting to be claimed for five months now.

Crypto users on X had hilarious reactions to the "misplaced" funds, especially among some of the biggest figures in the crypto space.

"Yikes, imagine misplacing millions like your car keys," one user said. Another said it would be impossible to get some sleep if a large amount of funds were hanging on a bridge.

Meanwhile, it is unclear if the wallet owners tagged by Arkham still have control of their misplaced funds or if they actually decided to leave their millions on the bridge contracts for now.