This is why POW is superior than POS. This shows POS blockchains has a dangerous flaw, the validators are vulnerable to attacks like this. This is impossible to happen in POW blockchains.
I don't believe PoS was the issue here, but that it was simply a bug in their smart contract. However, the shocking part is
them wanting to reimburse stolen funds.
This automatically shows they're able to print tokens if needed, which means they have total uncontested control over coin issuance and also shows their willingness to devalue all (bag)holders' portfolios due to a mistake
in their own code. Why would anyone ever invest into this crap again after seeing what the team is willing and able to do just like that?
That is something that we can't control now. if the investors still trust on the company they will not leave.
Back to the topic, the hacker managed to gain access to 5 out 9 validator nodes and used that nodes to validate fake withdrawals to bridge draining the funds. Now, the reason why i see this is a dangerous flaw to POS blockchains is because POS uses majority vote system to validate a transaction block now if the hacker manages to get access to majority of validator nodes theoretically, this would bring the whole blockchain down theoretically. Of course the developers will ramp up the security of their cryptocurrencies but the recent hack shows this is possible.