The losses are somewhat unusual because the neobanks describe themselves as self-custodial, which normally means that customers have total control over their crypto assets rather than storing them on a third-party platform. Normally, self-custody is more resilient to exploits like this, given that assets remain in user wallets. However, because these neobanks require customers to load funds they want to be able to spend into a third-party contract, they were vulnerable to the theft.
Exploit on Rain crypto payments infrastructure provider causes losses for "self-custodial" neobanks
A vulnerability in a smart contract belonging to Rain, a crypto payments infrastructure provider, resulted in $1.1 million in losses to various firms. Customers of the Avici cryptocurrency neobank, which offers a Visa credit card through which customers can spend crypto, suffered roughly $500,000 in losses. Customers of another neobank, Tria, lost more than $430,000.
Allbridge exploited for $1.66 million
The Allbridge blockchain bridge was exploited for $1.66 million in a flash loan attack. The attacker took advantage of a flaw in the project's logic that reprices assets against one another, after discovering that the same would happen even when borrowing an asset against collateral denominated in the same token. They were able to manipulate the project's internal pricing logic so that the asset's actual price diverged away from reality, pocketing $1.66 million in proceeds.
Across Protocol exploited for $3.35 million
The Solana deployment of the Across bridge was hacked for around $3.35 million. According to Across, the stolen funds belonged to Risk Labs, the foundation supporting the project, rather than users of the bridge.
Raydium users lose $1.34 million after legacy smart contract exploited
An attacker exploited a legacy smart contract that had been used by the Raydium Solana DEX before it was deprecated in 2021. Though the contract was unused, there were still funds in the liquidity pools affected by the vulnerable contract. Using fake LP tokens, the exploiter was able to trick an old smart contract with insufficient validation into allowing them to withdraw assets.
Raydium has said it will compensate users who lost funds in the exploit.
Drift exploited for $285 million
The Solana-based Drift defi perpetual futures exchange was exploited for $285 million. The project alerted the community on social media, writing: "Drift Protocol is experiencing an active attack. ... This is not an April Fools joke."
The project later described the exploit as "a novel attack involving durable nonces, resulting in a rapid takeover of Drift's Security Council administrative powers." Once the attacker had access to admin capabilities, they quickly eliminated risk management limits on the protocol and drained huge quantities of tokens, which they swapped to USDC and then ETH. The attack was attributed to extremely sophisticated social engineering, likely by North Korean hackers.
Some have criticized USDC's issuer, Circle, for not freezing the stolen funds during the six hours they were held in USDC. Unlike ETH, USDC is controlled by a centralized company that can, and regularly does, freeze assets determined to have been stolen or connected to illicit activity.
The theft is among the largest in defi history.
Step Finance, SolanaFloor, and Remora Markets shut down after January hack
Step Finance announced that, following a $30 million theft in late January, the project would be shutting down. Along with it, they will shut down SolanaFloor — a Solana-focused media project — and Remora Markets — a Solana-based tokenized stocks platform.
According to Step Finance, "we explored every possible path forward, including financing and acquisition opportunities. Unfortunately, we were unable to secure a viable outcome and have made the difficult decision to end all operations effective immediately."
In reply to Step Finance's announcement, crypto investor Mike Dudas claimed that the project had contacted him about bridge financing, but that Step had never responded to his request for more information about the hack. "i responded: 'would need to see the security post mortem before i could consider investing here' <crickets>"
$29 million stolen from from Step Finance treasury wallets
The Solana-based defi portfolio tracker Step Finance lost 261,854 SOL (~$28.7 million) when a thief gained access to treasury and fee wallets. It's not yet clear how the attacker was able to steal the funds, although Step Finance posted to Twitter that the theft occurred via a "well known attack vector". Step wrote that they were working with cybersecurity firms and law enforcement to address the incident.
Former NYC Mayor Eric Adams accused of rug pull as NYC Token crashes
Shortly after losing his campaign for re-election as mayor of New York City, Eric Adams announced he would be launching "NYC Token". He's pitched the project as a fundraising tool to fight "antisemitism" and "anti-Americanism", and as a project to "teach our children how to embrace the blockchain technology."
He launched the project on January 12, and buyers piled in in hopes of being early to a high-profile crypto token endorsed by a public figure. However, within hours, the team began pulling liquidity as the price peaked, extracting around $2.5 million. As the price began to fall, the team added back around $1.5 million, leaving around $1 million unaccounted for.
Additionally, on-chain researchers observed at least one wallet that spent almost $750,000 to purchase around 1.5 million $NYC around 10 minutes before the token was publicly announced, leading to speculation around insider trading. However, because of the token price crash after the team began pulling liquidity, the apparent insider ultimately lost around $500,000.
People were quick to accuse Adams, or his unidentified crypto team, of rug-pulling buyers. Adams and the project's social media account have claimed that the team was simply moving or "rebalanc[ing]" liquidity, though they have not yet offered any explanation as to where the missing $1 million went.
- Tweet by RuneCrypto_ [archive]
- Tweet thread by Bubblemaps [archive]
- Tweet by NYC Token [archive]
- Tweet thread by Bubblemaps [archive]
- Wallet on Solscan [archive]
- "Pitching Crypto and Needling Mamdani: Adams’s Post-Mayoralty Takes Shape", New York Times [archive]
- "Former 'bitcoin mayor' Eric Adams faces $3 million rugpull allegation after issuing NYC Token", CoinDesk [archive]
Upbit hacked for $30 million
The Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit suffered a loss of around $30 million in various Solana-based assets due to a hack. Some entities have suggested that Lazarus, a North Korean state-sponsored cybercrime group, was behind the hack.
Upbit reimbursed users who had lost funds from company reserves. The exchange was able to freeze around $1.77 million of the stolen assets.
This theft occurred exactly six years after Upbit suffered a theft of 342,000 ETH (priced at around $50 million at the time).
Credix vanishes after $4.5 million exploit
The defi lending protocol Credix lost $4.5 million to an exploit after a hacker gained control of an admin wallet and used it to mint tokens and drain liquidity pools.
Credix subsequently announced they had negotiated with the thief, who they said agreed to return the funds "in return for money fully paid by the credix treasury". They did not disclose how much they paid to the hacker.
However, shortly after this announcement, the company deleted its social media accounts and disappeared, leading some to wonder if the "hack" may have in fact been a rug pull by insiders. The promised reimbursements have not yet materialized.