There are emerging reports that the popular decentralized exchange (DEX) THORChain newly launched multi-chain chaos net was hacked for around 2400 ETH and as assortment of other tokens, the total estimated loss resulting from the incident is around $6.9M, going by the attacker’s account. However, the treasury is likely to compensate liquidity providers for their loss. The exact manner is which the exploit worked is unknown. Multi Chain Chaos Net (MCCN) has been halted by the node operators and investigation is underway.
THORChain’s Multi Chain Chaos Net (MCCN) powering the crypto-assets exchanges in their native form and without any wrapper or any other intermediary was launched on April 23. It introduced the ability to execute direct-chain swaps while ensuring non-custody and true decentralization. Since then, the team has adopted a largely cautious approach, allowing limited liquidity to be added to the system until it’s in the testing stage and using the gradually increasing caps on the assets that can be contributed to the protocol.
An overview of the THORChain attacker’s address shows the following assets that were extracted from the liquidity pools. These include 2400 (worth $4.6M), 57,975 SUSHI (worth $394K), 8.73 YFI (worth $265K), 171,912 DODO (worth $197.6M), 514.51 ALCX (worth $145K) and other tokens in small amounts. The team’s response remains to be seen and we are still waiting for the complete details on how the exploit worked.
RUNE – the native token of the THORChain is down 13.4% on the news and currently trading at $5. It has seen significant appreciation this year as anticipation built around the MCCN launch and THORChain announced a plethora of products to go alongside the liquidity and DEX service. Whilst it’s certainly a setback, it’s also likely to be the catalyst for using more safety and caution in DeFi protocols.