Matter Labs Sued Over ZKSync IP; $5.7M Stolen Tokens Recovered After April 15 Hack, Now in Security Council Custody

Matter Labs, the developer behind the layer-2 blockchain ZKSync, is facing a lawsuit from defunct blockchain firm BANKEX, which alleges that two former employees stole its technology to build ZKSync. Matter Labs has denied the allegations, describing them as baseless and asserting that ZKSync is original technology.

Separately, ZKSync recently recovered approximately $5.7 million in tokens that were stolen during an exploit on April 15, 2025. The breach involved the unauthorized minting of about 111 million ZK tokens via a compromised admin key, specifically affecting ZKSync's airdrop distribution contracts but not the broader protocol infrastructure.

The hacker responsible for the theft returned the assets after accepting a 10% bounty offer from ZKSync's Security Council and cooperating within a safe harbor deadline. The recovered funds are now in Security Council custody, with protocol governance set to determine their final allocation. ZKSync stated that it will not escalate the matter to law enforcement, and the incident did not compromise customer funds or core infrastructure.

During the recovery, Matter Labs intervened to restrict the transfer of 70% of the stolen funds. The price of ZK increased by 0.5% following the announcement of the agreement and recovery of funds.

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