In addition to promoting the token through the usual means, Novogratz got a large tattoo on his shoulder representing the token. Sadly for him, although the LUNA token would later fade away after crashing in spectacular (and fraudulent) fashion, tattoos are forever.
Galaxy Digital agrees to $200 million settlement over alleged LUNA manipulation
While many crypto firms have escaped enforcement actions from federal regulators thanks to massive industry lobbying, state enforcers are still on the beat. Crypto investment firm Galaxy Digital, headed by Mike Novogratz, has agreed to pay $200 million to settle market manipulation charges from the New York Attorney General, which accused Novogratz and his firm of promoting the token without disclosing they had acquired discounted tokens they were selling off at substantial profit.
- "Galaxy Digital Settles with NYAG for $200 Million Over Luna Ties", Wall Street Journal [archive]
HyperLiquid loses $13.5 million in alleged JELLYJELLY manipulation incident
HyperLiquid's Hyperliquidity Provider market making vault suffered a $13.5 million loss after an alleged market manipulation incident involving a memecoin called JELLYJELLY. A trader holding nearly $5 million (notional) of the token used a combination of shorts and spot purchases to force HyperLiquid to take on the short position. By forcing the token price up with large spot purchases, HLP suffered an unrealized loss of $13.5 million.
HyperLiquid validators voted to delist the JELLY token. They also evidently overrode the JELLY price provided by the market oracle in an attempt to reduce their losses, leading an unrelated crypto executive to question "Is that even legal?"
Polymarket suffers governance attack as whale manipulates Ukraine bet resolution; refuses refunds
Bets on the Polymarket platform where the outcome is not clear are resolved using an oracle system called UMA, or Universal Market Access. Holders of the UMA token participate in a vote to determine the outcome of challenged market resolutions.
Recently, $7 million was spent in a Polymarket market over whether Ukraine would agree to Trump's proposed mineral deal. Though no mutual agreement was reached, the market resolved to "yes". When it was challenged, a large holder of the UMA token cast a substantial number of yes votes to sway the outcome of the resolution, leaving the outcome in place.
Although Polymarket acknowledged that "This market resolved against the expectations of our users and our clarification" (referring to a Polymarket clarification that the resolution was too early as no mutual agreement was reached), they also refused to issue any refunds, writing that "this wasn't a market failure". "This is an unprecedented situation, and we have been in war rooms all day internally and with the UMA team to make sure this won't happen again. This is not a part of the future we want to build," the team member added.
Abracadabra loses $13 million in "Magic Internet Money"
An attacker using a flash loan attack stole $13 million in the Magic Internet Money token from the Abracadabra project. The attack was enabled by a bug in the platform's smart contracts, and the hacker ultimately made off with around 6,262 ETH.
This is the second time Abracadabra has been exploited, after suffering a $6.5 million theft in January 2024.
Binance acknowledges employee insider trading
Binance announced on Twitter that they had fired an employee after discovering that they had engaged in insider trading. The employee took a large position in a token that he knew would be engaging in a "token generation event", then quickly sold off the tokens after the project announced the event. According to Binance, this allowed him to "realize significant profits".
Binance announced that they had fired the employee, as "This behavior constitutes front-running based on non-public information obtained from his previous role and is a clear breach of company policy." The company became aware of the insider trading after they were alerted by outside parties who submitted tips to the company.
Zoth hacked for nearly $8.3 million, second theft in two weeks
RWA restaking platform Zoth suffered a $8.29 million hack after an attacker gained access to admin privileges that allowed them to modify the platform's smart contracts. The hacker "upgraded" the contract to a malicious version, then withdrew $8.45 million in USD0++, a token issued by the Usual protocol. After swapping the assets into various other tokens, they were left with 4,223 ETH (~$8.29 million).
This is the second Zoth exploit in two weeks, following a $285,000 theft on March 6 by an attacker who took advantage of a bug in one of the platform's smart contracts.
Four.Meme suffers second hack in as many months
After suffering an $183,000 loss to an attack in February, the BNB-based Four.Meme memecoin launchpad has been hacked again, this time for around $130,000. Four.Meme aims to be BNB's version of pump.fun, the popular Solana-based memecoin platform.
Four.Meme acknowledged the latest theft on Twitter, writing that they intended to reimburse users who lost money.
Zoth RWA restaking platform hacked
Zoth, a restaking platform for "real world assets" (or RWAs), was hacked for around $285,000 when an exploiter discovered a bug in the platform's collateral calculations. This allowed them to mint ZeUSD, the platform's stablecoin token, without depositing sufficient collateral.
- "Zoth Hack Analysis", SolidityScan
1inch loses $5 million to smart contract bug
An attacker exploited a smart contract belonging to the 1inch DEX aggregator, stealing $5 million in the USDC stablecoin and wETH. According to the platform, the vulnerability existed in "smart contracts using the obsolete Fusion v1 implementation", and the stolen funds belonged to resolvers (that is, entities that fulfill 1inch orders) rather than users.
Wemix Foundation bridge hacked for $6.2 million
The Wemix Foundation, which runs the blockchain gaming platform WEMIX, suffered a $6.2 million hack of their blockchain bridge. Although the hack occurred on February 28, the company did not disclose the theft until four days after the incident, leading some to accuse Wemix of attempting to cover up the hack. Wemix has denied those allegations, claiming that the delay was in hopes of preventing market panic, and to ensure they had time to patch any security vulnerabilities before publicly disclosing a breach.