Pump.fun, the popular tool for launching meme coins on Solana, suffered an exploit on Thursday that left the protocol compromised, and prompted its leadership to temporarily shut the site down. All the while, the apparent attacker behind the stunt gloated about it online. 

The attack appeared to target accounts, called bonding curve contracts, that move the liquidity of tokens of a sufficient size created on Pump.fun, onto the Solana decentralized exchange (DEX) Raydium. 

Some on-chain sleuths deduced that with the aid of a private key—one only an employee of Pump.fun would have access to—the attacker diverted funds earmarked for Raydium to unrelated wallet addresses. 

Igor Igamberdiev, head of research at crypto market maker Wintermute, estimated that the attacker siloed off at least $2 million worth of SOL using this exploit. 

In a twist, however, the attacker immediately began airdropping the stolen funds to random wallet addresses. He appears to have selected holders of a handful of Solana tokens and NFTs as the non-consenting recipients of the Pump.fun loot. 

Within minutes of the attack, a Twitter account belonging to a former Pump.fun employee claimed responsibility for it. The user began posting extensively and somewhat erratically, writing that he was not afraid of imprisonment and was aware his identity was doxxed. 

“Everybody be cool, this is robbery,” the account wrote. “I’m about to change the course of history. [And] then rot in jail. Am I sane? Nah. Am I well? [Very] much not. Do I want for anything? My mom raised from the dead.”

The account then began retweeting posts from thankful crypto users claiming to have received portions of the stolen funds from the attacker’s airdrops.

Decrypt reached out to the self-proclaimed attacker for more information about the exploit and his potential motivations for committing it. 

“The threads are there, dig deeper,” was his only response. 

A few hours after the attack, Pump.fun announced that it had paused trading on the protocol, and was investigating the issue. The company said it intended to cooperate with law enforcement; the self-proclaimed attacker is Canadian.  

On a Twitter Spaces on Thursday afternoon, the self-proclaimed Pump.fun attacker said he had worked for Pump.fun for a few weeks, that he felt the company was “horribly managed,” and that he had “personal grievances” against the company’s leadership. 

Asked why he committed the theft, he was extraordinarily blunt.

“I just kind of wanted to kill Pump.fun because it’s something to do,” he said. “It’s inadvertently hurt people for a long time.”

Decrypt reached out to Pump.fun to verify whether the self-proclaimed attacker did in fact previously work for the company, but did not immediately receive a response.

While Pump.fun has seen huge amounts of trading volume in the last few months as meme coin frenzy has overtaken crypto, it has also attracted criticism for fanning the flames of crypto’s more gambling-focused, purely speculative underbelly. 

The self-proclaimed Pump.fun attacker said on Thursday—without providing any supporting details—that he observed the company to be on a downward path that he helped accelerate. 

“They were going to kill themselves eventually, the way things were going,” he said.

One Spaces attendee asked the man whether he expected he would be sent to prison for his actions. 

“I’m pretty sure there’s a fairly high chance of that,” he replied.

Edited by Andrew Hayward

You’ve got in all probability come throughout at the very least one article heralding the tens of thousands and thousands of {dollars} in charitable contributions to Ukraine’s authorities thanks to the kindness of cryptocurrency holders and advocates.

Nevertheless, an summary of the Ethereum blockchain knowledge exhibits that the overwhelming majority of transactions over the previous 5 weeks – from when Ukraine began accepting crypto donations till the tip of March – occurred throughout a span of lower than two days, when donors believed they’d obtain an airdrop in return for his or her contribution.

An airdrop is principally an enormous giveaway that often entails handing out cryptocurrency tokens to customers.

In brief, most cryptocurrency donors despatched cash to Ukraine as a result of they believed they’d be capable of personally revenue from their donation. How? Later promoting a reward they’d obtain in change for his or her donated crypto, treating their contribution extra like an funding.

On Feb. 26, 2022, the official Ukraine authorities Twitter account shocked many on-line when it introduced it might start accepting donations by way of cryptocurrency. The tweet included Ukraine’s official Bitcoin and Ethereum pockets addresses the place crypto holders may ship donations. Ether (ETH), the forex that’s traded on the Ethereum blockchain, is the one of many two largest cryptocurrencies, second solely to Bitcoin.

Tweet could have been deleted

In keeping with the general public Ethereum blockchain knowledge, greater than 2,800 Ethereum transactions have been despatched to Ukraine’s pockets deal with on that first day. On Feb. 27, simply over 3,000 transactions have been made.

One would count on an inflow of transactions in these first days from the hype spreading among the many cryptocurrency area and the media protection that adopted. Nevertheless, by Feb. 28, Ethereum transactions despatched to Ukraine have been already dropping, with simply over 1,200 transactions.

Then on March 2, 2022, Ukraine tweeted “airdrop confirmed.” The window to get in on the airdrop would final till March 3. 

Tweet could have been deleted

Airdrops may come within the type of a non-fungible token (NFT) or a fungible token, akin to dropping free cash into customers’ wallets.

As a result of tokens are monetary belongings, airdrops are advertising stunts that reward individuals monetarily. As soon as an airdrop is obtained, holders can flip round and commerce these tokens for fiat forex, akin to U.S. {dollars}. And to get that reward it’s essential to purchase right into a crypto undertaking in a roundabout way. On this case by donating to the Ukraine authorities’s official pockets deal with.

On the day the airdrop was introduced, Ethereum transactions shot up from round 2,400 to greater than 33,600. March 3 noticed over 25,600 transactions made and it may have probably been extra. Nevertheless, hours earlier than the cut-off to donate with a view to obtain the airdrop, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine and Minister of Digital Transformation of Ukraine, Mykhailo Fedorov, introduced that the airdrop was canceled.

Tweet could have been deleted

Ether donations to Ukraine instantly plummeted. The day after the airdrop was canceled noticed solely round 840 transactions despatched to Ukraine and continued to halve each subsequent day. Solely round two to 3 dozen Ethereum transactions a day have been made to Ukraine over the previous week.

So, why did Ukraine cancel the deliberate airdrop? As a result of officers inside the Ukrainian authorities realized that many crypto donors have been certainly making an attempt to revenue from their charitable contribution, which was meant to assist Ukraine as Russia invaded the war-torn nation.

In keeping with Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation on IT business growth Alex Bornyakov, “lots of people” started sending extremely small quantities of ether, clearly simply to obtain the airdrop.

There was no minimal donation set by Ukraine to obtain the airdrop, so seemingly even very small donations may have obtained the kickback.

“Individuals began to need to revenue,” mentioned Ukraine’s deputy minister of digital transformation on IT business growth Alex Bornyakov in an interview with Motherboard. “Personally, I do not suppose it is moral.”

In the long run, cryptocurrency promoters definitely got here out forward no matter what occurred with the airdrop. Media shops rewarded the cryptocurrency business with optimistic press protection as a result of thousands and thousands in charitable contributions despatched to Ukraine.

In actuality, although, the intent behind most of these transactions have been something however charity.

Key Takeaways

• OpenDAO is a brand new decentralized NFT-focused challenge.
• It launched on Christmas Eve with a token airdrop for OpenSea customers. The token has soared in a single day.
• The distribution methodology is notable due to current criticisms aimed toward OpenSea and its hesitance to launch a token.

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Following an in a single day surge, OpenDAO’s market cap is at roughly $295 million. 

SOS Airdrop Calms NFT Neighborhood’s OpenSea Woes 

Christmas simply retains getting higher for the NFT group. 

A brand new challenge known as OpenDAO launched Friday, bursting onto the scene with a token airdrop for devoted NFT collectors. 

The challenge allotted a 50% portion of its SOS token provide to customers of OpenSea, the biggest NFT market. The quantity distributed to every person was calculated based mostly on the quantity spent on OpenSea and the variety of transactions earlier than a snapshot date. Because of this, among the most energetic NFT merchants have obtained the biggest payouts from the airdrop. Christmas token airdrops like this have change into one thing of a crypto phenomenon lately; in 2020, 1inch memorably distributed its 1INCH token to early customers at midnight on Christmas Day. 

OpenDAO’s chosen distribution methodology is notable partly due to current developments surrounding OpenSea. As NFTs exploded in recognition in 2021, OpenSea cemented its place because the main market for digital collectibles. OpenSea customers have lengthy hoped that the group would launch a token to provide the group possession over the challenge. Token airdrops are a standard observe in crypto, and notably DeFi, amongst tasks trying to transfer towards decentralization and reward the early adopters that contributed to their success. Nonetheless, regardless of ongoing rumors, OpenSea is but to launch a token. Earlier this month, the corporate employed a brand new CFO from Lyft, Brian Roberts, who revealed in a Bloomberg interview that he needed to work towards taking the corporate public, which might doubtless rule out any token plans. Roberts later clarified that the corporate “would look to contain the group” in any potential IPO following intense backlash from the NFT group. 

There was inaccurate reporting about @OpenSea‘s plans. Let me set the document straight: there’s a massive hole between fascinated with what an IPO would possibly finally appear like & actively planning one. We’re not planning an IPO, and if we ever did, we might look to contain the group.

— broberts.eth (@BKRoberts) December 8, 2021

Now, curiosity in OpenDAO and its SOS token signifies that the group has an urge for food for a decentralized challenge targeted on NFTs. Per information from CoinGecko, SOS is up 589% within the final 24 hours. Much like many meme coin tasks that emerged this 12 months, the token has a big provide of 100 trillion, which suggests every token is price solely fractions of a cent. At press time, $100 price of USDC buys about 12 million SOS on Uniswap. With the in a single day rise, the challenge’s market cap is at roughly $295 million. Etherscan information reveals that SOS has over 130,000 holders, and that quantity may enhance as extra customers begin to declare their airdrops. 

On its web site, OpenDAO describes SOS as “the token for the biggest NFT group, to pay tribute, to guard, to advertise.” Curiously, it says {that a} 20% allocation of the provision will go towards supporting the group via compensating OpenSea rip-off victims, supporting rising artists, NFT communities, and artwork preservation, and organizing a developer grant for the SOS ecosystem. Whereas it’s unclear whether or not OpenDAO will make a long-lasting affect on the NFT area, for now, it’s generated a major quantity of buzz because of its token giveaway. 

Disclosure: On the time of writing, the creator of this function was eligible for OpenDAO’s SOS airdrop. Additionally they owned ETH, USDC, and a number of other different cryptocurrencies. 

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