Grand Base, a <button class="define-target" id="real-world-asset">real world assets</button> platform built on the Base <button class="define-target" id="layer-2">layer-2</button> blockchain, has seen $2&nbsp;million exit the platform in a hack or <button class="define-target" id="rug-pull">rug pull</button>.<p>The team behind the project claimed that the <button class="define-target" id="deployer">deployer</button> wallet had been compromised, allowing an attacker to drain the project's <button class="define-target" id="liquidity-pool">liquidity pool</button>. Altogether, 615&nbsp;ETH (~$2&nbsp;million) was taken from the project.</p><p>Grand Base is a platform where users can trade "gAssets", which are crypto tokens that represent stocks in tech companies including Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, and Microsoft.</p>

Grand Base theft

$2&nbsp;million emptied from Grand Base real world asset platform

Liquidators have been appointed for three cryptocurrency companies owned by Ash Balanian. DCA Capital, Digital Commodity Assets, and the Digital Commodity Assets Fund have all entered liquidation after investors raised red flags about the fund's management and licensure.<p>So far, losses are estimated to affect around 100 investors, who have up to AU$100&nbsp;million (US$65&nbsp;million) in claims.</p><p>Balanian had boasted of his career experience as a former NASA mission planner, and targeted his fund to wealthy investors with a minimum initial deposit of AU$50,000 (~US$33,000).</p>

"Up to $150 million at risk as two Australian bitcoin schemes go bust"

DCA Fund collapse

Australian DCA Fund collapses with up to $65&nbsp;million owed to creditors

NGS Crypto, which sold "crypto mining packages" to interested investors, has been put into receivership. The Australian firm encouraged customers to set up a self-managed super fund — a type of retirement fund — to achieve returns they said were powered by crypto mining. The firms advertised returns of up to 16% annually, and promised that investors would receive 100% of their initial investment back at the term's completion — even "in the unlikely event that crypto mining becomes unprofitable".<p>NGS and its associated business is believed to have pulled in around AU$62&nbsp;million (US$42&nbsp;million) from around 450 Australians.</p>

Australian NGS Crypto mining fund collapses

STFIL, a protocol that promises liquid staking and "leverage mining" to holders of Filecoin's FIL token, announced on Twitter that "We believe that the STFIL core technical team is under investigation by local Chinese police."<p>According to STFIL, while some of the core team members were detained by Chinese police, FIL tokens were moved to an unknown wallet. They also acknowledged that there had been "abnormal, unscheduled upgrades to the protocol". They asked their community members for help in tracking the wallet.</p><p>Some speculated that the story was fake, and that the project had stolen the funds. However, Chinese police have in several instances cracked down on people and companies involved in Filecoin-related projects, including an <a href="https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=shenzhen-shikongyun-technology-scheme" target="_blank">$83.3 million alleged pyramid scheme</a> in August 2023 and a group of <a href="https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=filecoin-ponzi-scheme" target="_blank">Filecoin Ponzi schemers</a> in 2021. Filecoin mining became popular in China after its 2018 initial coin offering, and also became a magnet for Ponzi schemes and other scams.</p>

"Filecoin liquid staking platform STFIL claims team members under investigation by Chinese police"

STFIL investigation

$23&nbsp;million goes missing amid STFIL claims that they're being investigated

A person or group have raised funds for various crypto projects only to abandon them, empty the project wallets, and <button class="define-target" id="tumbler">launder</button> the funds through Tornado Cash. The largest of the projects was called "MuskSwap", which proclaimed: "$MUSK &amp; MuskSwap was born to show admiration to elon musk's super projects like solarcity, tesla, space x and his constant influence on the world finance &amp; the crypto market."<p>The project described itself as a <button class="define-target" id="dex">DEX</button> with a native $MUSK token, and launched in July 2021. However, the token tanked on December 25, 2021. Although the project team tried to blame the crash on "liquidity issues" and promised paths forward, they locked the project Telegram chat on March 11, 2022. On April 5, 2022, the team withdrew remaining funds and deleted the website.</p><p>Crypto analysis firm CertiK linked the MuskSwap project to several other scam tokens and projects: RocketDoge, InfinityGame, SpaceX, MUFC (themed after Manchester United), and Elona Musk. Altogether, the rug pulls have drawn in $5.1&nbsp;million.</p>

"Decrypting MuskSwap: A web of Scams and Tracking Funds Through Tornado Cash"

MuskSwap exit scam

MuskSwap and related projects exit scam for over $5&nbsp;million

A project describing itself as "The world's first memecoin pre-announced as a rugpull" was explicit in its marketing: "do not buy this coin, as it will go to zero."<p>Despite that, people sent the creator over 8.8&nbsp;ETH (almost $29,000) for the project's "pre-sale", even as they repeated on Twitter that the project was a scam and that no one should buy it.</p>

Rug pull token

Project promising to rug pull raises almost $29,000

The Solana ecosystem is grappling with a spate of drained wallets. A cause has yet to be definitively determined, but some of the thefts were linked to the use of trading bots like Solareum. Solareum speculated that the exploits may have been linked to compromised Telegram bot tokens, which could have allowed the attackers to obtain private keys from message history.<p>Solareum later wrote that they would be closing the project, and deleted their website. This drew some criticism from users who accused them of doing nothing to investigate the hack, or even being responsible themselves. The project wrote on Twitter, "We at #SOLAREUM team can clarify that we DO NOT steal money." Ah, well, in that case.</p><p>Other bots may have been involved in the theft, though it's not clear at this point. Though there was some speculation that a trading bot called BonkBot was to blame, that seems to have been unfounded.</p><p>The total theft amount is not clear, but exceeds $500,000.</p>

Solana drain attacks

Solana faces wave of drain attacks linked to trading bots including Solareum

The <button class="define-target" id="defi">defi</button> protocol Prisma Finance was hacked for 3,257&nbsp;ETH ($11.5&nbsp;million). An attacker was able to take advantage of a flaw in the project's <button class="define-target" id="smart-contract">smart contracts</button>, allowing them to manipulate users' positions and steal some of their collateral. Two other watchful attackers observed the attack strategy and replicated it, stealing a combined additional 173&nbsp;ETH (~$610,000).<p>Plasma paused the protocol after detecting the attack.</p><p>The first attacker, who stole the bulk of the assets, sent an on-chain message to Prisma claiming that they had performed a "whitehat rescue", and inquired about returning the funds. In later messages, however, they asked the project to answer questions about their security practices and projects' responsibilities to users to prevent attacks. The attacker then transferred the stolen funds to Tornado Cash — indicating their return is unlikely.</p><p>In another message, the attacker was angry that Prisma had not expressed gratitude to them or remorse to their users, and was angry they had used terms like "exploit" and "attack" in their description of the incident. They demanded that the team reveal their identities, apologize, and thank the attacker in an online press conference.</p>

"Prisma Finance Exploit - March 28, 2024 - Post-Mortem"

Prisma Finance hack

Prisma Finance hacked for $12&nbsp;million; attacker makes detailed demands

The "Munchables" crypto game explains: "Schnibbles grow on every realm across the Munchable's world. Each realm has their own unique and distinctive schniblet, and the Munchables react differently based on their compatibility to the schniblets fed to them. When creating an account for the Munchables, you must choose the location of your snuggery." Right then.<p>Things went awry in the land of the schnibbles and snuggeries when an attacker siphoned around 17,400&nbsp;ETH ($62.5&nbsp;million). Various descriptions of the attack circulated, with blockchain sleuth zachxbt attributing it to a recently hired developer, and crypto developer 0xQuit claiming the theft appeared to have been "planned since deploy".</p><p>Some began discussing the possibility that the Blast layer-2 blockchain might forcibly roll back the chain to "undo" the hack. Some have argued this is contra to the crypto ethos or would set a bad precedent, while others have argued that as a blockchain focused more on gaming and experimentation and less on decentralization and other facets of crypto ideology, it would be a reasonable step.</p><p>Some hours after the attack, the exploiter was convinced to return the funds.</p>

"Crypto game ‘Munchables’ on Blast exploited for $63M"

Munchables hack

"Munchables" crypto game exploited for $62.5&nbsp;million

The LENX cross-chain bitcoin liquidity protocol has recently been accused of a $10&nbsp;million <button class="define-target" id="rug-pull">rug pull</button> after community members observed massive withdrawals of treasury funds which were then sent to Binance accounts.<p>One of the co-founders, known only as "Paul", claimed on Discord that he was "trying to investigate" the movement of funds, which have been blamed on the project's other co-founder, John Kim.</p><p>Conversations on Discord suggest that a remaining $3&nbsp;million in treasury funds were protected, and that the remaining LENX team may have been able to convince Binance to freeze the account that received stolen funds. However, little has been verifiably confirmed to date.</p><p>LENX is backed by the Frax Finance lending protocol.</p>

"Unexplained transfers on LENX protocol spark rug pull concerns"

LENX rug pull

LENX co-founder accused of $10&nbsp;million rug pull

Curio, a crypto project that creates tokens based on "real-world assets" (RWAs) like cars, watches, wine, and other goods, has suffered an attack that saw around $16&nbsp;million drained from the project's funds.<p>A bug in the project's Ethereum <button class="define-target" id="smart-contract">smart contract</button> enabled an attacker to mint 1&nbsp;billion of the project's CGT <button class="define-target" id="governance-token">governance token</button>. Although the tokens were notionally priced at around $40&nbsp;million, the loss to the project was estimated at closer to $16&nbsp;million.</p><p>Curio <button class="define-target" id="dao">DAO</button> announced that they intended to compensate users affected by the theft over a year-long period.</p>

"Hacker mints 1B tokens in $16M Curio smart contract exploit"

"CurioDAO Q1 2024 Exploit Recovery Strategy"

Curio hack

Curio RWA project suffers $16&nbsp;million exploit

The astrology-based Lucky Star Currency project <a href="https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=lucky-star-currency-rug-pull" target="_blank">rug-pulled for $1.1&nbsp;million</a> in October 2023. You'd think that might be the end of it, but on March 22, 2024, ownership of the project was transferred to a malicious smart contract that then drained tokens priced at almost $300,000 from those who still held them.<p>You almost have to admire the tenacity.</p>

Lucky Star Currency rug pull #2

Previously rug-pulled Lucky Star Currency project somehow rugs again

Super Sushi Samurai, a new blockchain game on the Blast layer-2 blockchain was exploited for $4.6&nbsp;million when an attacker discovered a vulnerability in its <button class="define-target" id="smart-contract">smart contract</button>. A bug in the <button class="define-target" id="mint">mint</button> functionality caused users who transferred their $SSS balance to themselves to receive twice as many tokens. An attacker took advantage of this to drain $4.6&nbsp;million from the project, causing the $SSS token to plummet by 99%.<p>The attacker contacted the project shortly after the theft, claiming to be a whitehat. They wrote, "Hi team, this is a whitehat rescue hack. Let's work on reimbursing the users." Super Sushi Samurai later confirmed that the funds had been returned, minus a 5% "bounty". The team also gave the whitehat an additional 2.5% in SSS tokens and land, and brought them on to the project team as a tech adviser.</p>

Super Sushi Samurai exploit

Super Sushi Samurai exploited by whitehat for $4.6&nbsp;million

A developer brought on to run a presale for the $TICKER token stole $900,000 from the project. 15% of the token supply was sent to the developer to distribute via an <button class="define-target" id="airdrop">airdrop</button>, but instead of doing so, the developer sold the majority of the tokens for around $900,000.<p>After the thief was identified by blockchain sleuth zachxbt, they posted a long message on Twitter, writing, "im not sorry for any of you, tbh. you are all morons if you believe all it needs to make it here is to send your money to a custodial address and get rich". The thief later spent some of the money on Milady NFTs and memecoins.</p><p>zachxbt stated that he had identified the developer, including his full name, location, and other details. He encouraged those who were scammed to contact him if they were interested in pursuing legal action.</p>

TICKER rug pull

TICKER project developer steals $900,000

The Dolomite DEX suffered a $1.8&nbsp;million theft as an exploiter was able to take advantage of a vulnerability in a <button class="define-target" id="smart-contract">smart contract</button> that had been deployed in 2019. Although most contemporary users of the exchange use a version deployed on the Arbitrum <button class="define-target" id="layer-2">layer-2</button> network, the old contracts were still usable on Ethereum.<p>An attacker apparently discovered a reentrancy bug allowing them to drain user funds from those who had approved the old contract. Altogether, around $1.8&nbsp;million was taken before the team disabled the contract. The attacker quickly <button class="define-target" id="tumbler">tumbled</button> the stolen funds through Tornado Cash.</p>

"Old Dolomite exchange contract suffers $1.8M loss from approval exploit"

Dolomite exchange hack

Dolomite exchange exploited for $1.8&nbsp;million

An attacker used social engineering techniques to gain access to the AirDAO project's liquidity pool. They then were able to drain 126.5&nbsp;ETH (~$551,540) and 41.6&nbsp;million AMB (notionally priced at around $500,000, but not very liquid). The thief then transferred the stolen tokens through various exchanges.<p>AirDAO announced the theft the following day, and stated that they were working to track and freeze stolen funds. They also offered the attacker a 10% "<button class="define-target" id="bug-bounty">bounty</button>" if they chose to return the stolen assets.</p>

AirDAO exploit

AirDAO exploited via social engineering attack

People have gotten really into <button class="define-target" id="memecoin">memecoin</button> trading on Solana recently. Like <i>really</i> into it. Someone decided they'd hop on the bandwagon with "Slerf", a sloth-themed memecoin they said would launch with a 50% presale.<p>Thanks to the aforementioned frenzy, the project managed to raise $10&nbsp;million in the presale. However, things went sideways when the developer accidentally <button class="define-target" id="burn">burned</button> the $10&nbsp;million by sending them to an address where they would be permanently inaccessible. "oh fuck", the developer wrote ominously on Twitter, before explaining their mistake.</p><p>Some speculated that the screwup may have been a marketing ploy, in which case it was very successful, because the token went on to post more than $2.7&nbsp;billion in trading volume over a 24-hour period — more than the entire ETH trading volume in that period. The monumental error by the developers seemed to have no damper on the overall frenzy around memecoins, or even produced the opposite effect.</p><p>Surely this trend won't end badly.</p>

"Solana Meme Coin Slerf Clocks Higher Trading Volume Than All of Ethereum"

Slerf memecoin meltdown only adds to mania

"Charlotte Fang", the leader of the <a href="https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=founder-of-milady-nft-project-revealed-to-have-horrifying-history" target="_blank">controversial</a> Remilia project (known for its Milady NFTs), claimed he was hacked and drained of ETH and NFTs potentially worth several million dollars. Although the project's treasury used a <button class="define-target" id="multisig">multi-signature</button> model, the <button class="define-target" id="private-key">private keys</button> were stored in one password manager, which Fang says was compromised.<p>The attacker stole around 490&nbsp;ETH (~$1.8&nbsp;million) and $58,000 USDC, along with more than 130&nbsp;Milady NFTs, 320&nbsp;Remilio NFTs, and hundreds of derivative tokens issued on the NFTX platform. Based on <button class="define-target" id="floor-price">floor prices</button>, the assets are valued at north of $6&nbsp;million.</p><p>The mechanism of the attack is still uncertain, though Fang has said he suspects malware that could have intercepted credentials to his Bitwarden password manager. Some have expressed skepticism around the "hack", suggesting it could have been inside job. The Remilia group had suffered a separate <a href="https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=remilia-theft" target="_blank">$1&nbsp;million loss in September 2023</a> — blamed on a rogue developer — and failed to implement many security safeguards after that incident.</p>

Remilia Collective reports multi-million dollar hack

Someone impersonating Ansem, an influential crypto trader, was able to scam people out of more than $2.6&nbsp;million simply by replying to the real Ansem's tweets. Using an account mimicking the real account, with only a slight difference in the username, a phisher convinced Ansem's followers that he was creating his own Solana <button class="define-target" id="memecoin">memecoin</button> and asked them to buy in.<p>In one of the real Ansem's tweets, Ansem wrote "i dont launch coins bros" — nevertheless, followers eager to get in early on a new memecoin clicked a link offering a presale and had their wallets <button class="define-target" id="drainer">drained</button>.</p><p>Altogether, people lost $2.6&nbsp;million to the scam. One individual lost $1.2&nbsp;million.</p>

Ansem Twitter impersonator

Phisher impersonating influential crypto trader in Twitter replies scams over $2.6&nbsp;million

Wilder World is a blockchain-based racing game that uses all the buzzwords: blockchains, artificial intelligence, and <button class="define-target" id="metaverse">metaverse</button>. On March 16, someone with access to the project <button class="define-target" id="deployer">deployer's</button> <button class="define-target" id="private-key">private key</button> upgraded legacy contracts and transfer the project's $WILD and $MEOW tokens to themselves. Altogether, the attacker profited 515&nbsp;ETH (~$1.8&nbsp;million), which they then laundered through the Tornado Cash cryptocurrency <button class="define-target" id="tumbler">tumbler</button>.<p>The project blamed the theft on a previous contractor who had the private key. They also explained that the attacker seemed to be a developer based on the fact that they had "specialized knowledge of ZERO's internal security systems".</p>

Event	Date	Amount More info	Recovered More info
Grand Base theft	April 15, 2024	$1,972,305
DCA Fund collapse	April 12, 2024	$65,000,000
Australian NGS Crypto mining fund collapses	April 12, 2024	$42,000,000
STFIL investigation	April 9, 2024	$23,000,000
MuskSwap exit scam	April 8, 2024	$5,100,000
Rug pull token	April 3, 2024	$28,878
Solana drain attacks	March 30, 2024	at least $500,000
Prisma Finance hack	March 28, 2024	$12,000,000
Munchables hack	March 26, 2024	$62,500,000	$62,500,000
LENX rug pull	March 26, 2024	$10,000,000
Curio hack	March 25, 2024	$16,000,000
Lucky Star Currency rug pull #2	March 22, 2024	$297,000
Super Sushi Samurai exploit	March 21, 2024	$4,600,000	$4,255,000
TICKER rug pull	March 21, 2024	$900,000
Dolomite exchange hack	March 20, 2024	$1,800,000
AirDAO exploit	March 20, 2024	$551,540
Slerf memecoin meltdown only adds to mania	March 18, 2024	$10,000,000
Remilia Collective reports multi-million dollar hack	March 16, 2024	$5,999,945
Ansem Twitter impersonator	March 16, 2024	$2,600,000
Wilder World theft	March 16, 2024	$1,800,000