A faux model of AI-crypto challenge Genius’ token, GNUS, was used to empty Uniswap liquidity suppliers of $1.3M on Sunday.
The assault concerned creating an an identical token on the Fantom blockchain, the place no official model of GNUS had but been deployed.
After cloning the GNUS token contract on Fantom, the attacker bridged 100M freshly minted tokens throughout to their Ethereum handle utilizing the Axelar bridge.
Lastly, the GNUS tokens have been bought into the prevailing Uniswap liquidity pool, draining the 407 ETH (value $1.3M on the time).
The Genius workforce acknowledged the assault by way of X (previously Twitter). The CEO later pointed to a growth pockets having being compromised “during a Discord hack”. This apparently “enabled [the hacker] to launch the exact address on FTM of the Axelar Token Minter Manager contract” which allowed the faux tokens to be minted as real on Ethereum and Polygon.
The sell-off prompted the GNUS value to tank by over 95%, from $22.86 to $0.79, in accordance with knowledge from CoinGecko.
One safety researcher identified that the incident shouldn’t be technically a ‘hack’ of Genius’ sensible contracts, because the stolen funds have been taken from the Uniswap pool’s liquidity suppliers (LPs) by way of an ordinary swap, versus from the platform itself.
One other researcher suspects the incident to have been a premeditated ‘rug pull’, a method for the workforce to steal funds from LPs whereas making out {that a} hacker is accountable.
The CEO states {that a} whole of $1M can be added again into the liquidity pool to try to bolster the GNUS value, “once we are sure it can’t be hacked again.”
Learn extra: ZKasino $30M ‘favor’ to customers — seamless transition or rug pull?
Ghost chain
Fantom, as soon as amongst the high contenders for the function of “ETH killer” throughout final cycle, has since seen its fortunes fade.
Fantom hit its peak in early 2022, when it boasted over $7B of whole worth locked (TVL). This has since dropped to only $120M, rating thirty seventh on DeFiLlama’s listing of largest blockchains.
Final 12 months, issues with Multichain, Fantom’s important bridge, additional compounded points. First rumours, then affirmation of the disappearance of Multichain CEO led to depegs of many stablecoins and ‘wrapped’ belongings, because the destiny of their collateral remained unclear.
The Fantom Basis has since been pursuing the partial restoration of misplaced belongings by way of authorized motion in Singapore, the place it was lately granted a default judgement in opposition to Multichain.
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