13-year-old rug pulls crypto token, then faces retaliation
A 13-year-old known as the "Gen Z Quant kid," created a token called QUANT and executed a rug pull, making $30,000. In retaliation, various people in the cryptocurrency world executed a "revenge pump" — pumping up the price of the token after the kid cashed out, causing him to miss out on potential gains. Worse, they then found the child's identity, and published his address and the school he attended. They also identified his mother, and began leaving hateful comments on her Instagram account. Rumors also emerged that a member of the cryptocurrency community dognapped the child's dog, then launched a memecoin based on the animal.
Around $21 million in losses reported by users of DEXX
DEXX, a platform that advertises itself as the "first memecoins trading terminal application", disclosed that it had been hacked when it posted a message on social media addressed to "Mr./Ms. Hacker", asking they return stolen funds in exchange for "destroy[ing] all information we currently have on the hack" and not pursuing further legal action.
DEXX did not disclose how much was taken in the breach, but hundreds of victims have reported around $21 million in combined losses so far.
Polter Finance exploited for $12 million
The Fantom-based Polter Finance defi project was exploited for $7 million when an attacker was able to perform an oracle manipulation attack. By artificially increasing the price of the $BOO token, which is a governance token used by the SpookySwap project, they were then able to use that token to drain Polter's liquidity pools using a flash loan. The attacker successfully drained the entire $12 million worth of tokens on the platform.
The creator of the platform stated that they had filed a police report with Singaporean authorities. They also attempted to contact the hacker via on-chain message to negotiate the return of funds, but have not received a response.
Thala Labs loses, then recovers, $25.5 million
The Thala Labs Aptos-based defi project suffered a $25.5 million theft when an attacker exploited a vulnerability in one of their smart contracts. They paused related smart contracts and froze tokens where they were able, ultimately freezing around $11.5 million in assets. After working with law enforcement and several blockchain security teams, they successfully negotiated the return of the assets, leaving the attacker with a "bounty" of $300,000.
DeltaPrime loses $4.8 million in second hack
The DeltaPrime defi protocol was hacked for the second time in two months, losing $4.8 million in Arbitrum and Avalanche tokens. The attacker appeared to have exploited a flaw in one of the platform's smart contracts that enabled them to borrow more than they put up in collateral.
DeltaPrime paused the protocol on both Arbitrum and Avalanche, stopping the attacker from being able to steal more funds than they already had.
DeltaPrime was hacked previously on September 16, losing $6 million after a leaked private key enabled an attacker to mint a huge number of the platform's stablecoin deposit receipts.
Trader reveals he lost $28 million to bad copy-paste
After apparently exhausting all his other options, a trader has put out a call to "all skilled hackers and white hats out there" to help him recover 7,912 Renzo staked ETH (ezETH) he inadvertently sent to an inaccessible address back in June. The tokens were priced at a little over $28 million at the time, and are currently priced at a little less than $26 million. According to the trader, he copied the wrong address to his clipboard before making the trade, which rendered his funds permanently inaccessible.
Short of finding a vulnerability in Renzo, the trader's only real choice is to plead with Renzo to change their smart contract in such a way as to release the funds. While this is technically possible, Renzo has told the trader they could not grant his request due to "regulatory limitations".
CoinPoker exploited for $2 million
Crypto-powered poker website CoinPoker was apparently exploited for around $2 million when an attacker was able to compromise a hot wallet controlled by the platform. The attacker then laundered most of the funds through the Tornado Cash mixer.
The platform sent a message to the exploiter attempting to negotiate a return of some of the funds.
MetaWin casino hacked for $4 million
Hot wallets used by the MetaWin crypto casino were drained of around $4 million. According to the company's CEO, the attacker "t[ook] advantage of our frictionless withdrawal system". The attacker then moved the stolen funds to crypto exchanges including KuCoin.
- "Online Casino MetaWin hacked for $4 million — ZackXBT", CoinTelegraph
Supply chain attack stemming from JavaScript animation library results in losses for users of 1inch and other platforms
Attackers were able to inject malicious code into the popular "LottieFiles" JavaScript animations library. Visitors to websites using the library saw a prompt to connect their crypto wallets to what was ultimately a cryptocurrency wallet drainer. This affected some crypto platforms that used the library, including the 1inch decentralized exchange aggregator. One victim who connected their wallet suffered the loss of 10 BTC (~$723,000).
Other crypto platforms affected included TEN Finance and Movement. Because the animations library is widely used, other non-crypto-related websites also showed the prompt.
M2 cryptocurrency exchange hacked for $13.7 million
The UAE-based M2 cryptocurrency exchange was hacked for $13.7 million in bitcoin, ether, and Solana tokens. The exploiter compromised several of the exchange's hot wallets to take the funds.
Shortly after the theft, M2 acknowledged the hack and announced that "the situation has been fully resolved". This apparently involved M2 restoring customer funds from their own assets, rather than recovering the stolen assets.