In one of the biggest attacks in the DeFi space, hackers exploited the DeFi project Cover Protocol by liquidating nearly 12K COVER coins and injecting an additional supply of 40 quintillion Cover “coins”.
DeFi project COVER staking protocol has recently been the victim of a suspected attack while artificially inflating the COVER token supply. The hackers have reported exploited the Cover protocol with millions of stolen cover tokens amounting to a massive $2 trillion.
Allegedly, the hackers infused an additional supply of over 40 quintillion Cover “coins”. This resulted in the COVER coin price crashing nearly 90%. On Monday, December 28, the COVER token price crashed all the way from $735 to $53, as per the data on CoinGecko.
The hacker – may be an individual or a small group – has taken responsibility for the attack. In a dramatic, the suspected attacker also returned the funds saying “Next time, take care of your own shit”.
Ethereum wallet explorer Nansen also presented some key details of the event. Soon after inflating the token supply in the initial exploit, the attacker liquidated nearly 12K COVER coins on decentralized exchange aggregator 1inch. In a message on the Discord Group, the Cover Protocol noted:
“The Blacksmith farming contract has been exploited to mint infinite $COVER tokens. We have restricted minting access to the farming contract in order to stop the attacker. If you are providing liquidity for $COVER token (uniswap or sushiswap) please remove it immediately.”
The Cover Protocol team said that the issue has only affected the token supply. However, the funds in the “claim/noclaim” pools are still safe.
Exploring a New Cover Protocol Token
Soon after the attack on Monday, Cover Protocol also announced that it is exploring a new Cover token after a snapshot of the LP token holders. In a message on its Twitter handle, the Cover Protocol team noted.
Hello everyone, we are exploring providing a NEW $COVER token through a snapshot before the minting exploit was abused. The 4350 ETH that has been returned by the attacker will also be handled through a snapshot to the LP token holders.We are still investigating. Do NOT buy COVER
— Cover Protocol (@CoverProtocol) December 28, 2020
Interestingly, soon after getting the alert message, all developers from Yearn Ecosystem came to support the Cover team. The team noted that they “are working with multiple teams and individuals within the Yearn Ecosystem. We will provide updates as they come. We can not thank everyone enough for their help in this unfortunate situation.”
Bhushan is a FinTech enthusiast and holds a good flair in understanding financial markets. His interest in economics and finance draw his attention towards the new emerging Blockchain Technology and Cryptocurrency markets. He is continuously in a learning process and keeps himself motivated by sharing his acquired knowledge. In free time he reads thriller fictions novels and sometimes explore his culinary skills.
