Arbitrum airdrop: Hacked vanity addresses used to siphon $500K

March 24, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Airdrop

The tokens were stolen by someone who compiled vanity addresses eligible for ARB airdrops.

Hacked vanity addresses have reportedly been used to steal $500,000 worth of tokens from layer-2 scaling solution Arbitrum’s March 23 airdrop.

A vanity address is a customized cryptocurrency address containing specific words or phrases chosen by the user, aiming to make them more personal and easily identifiable. However, the safety of vanity addresses is questionable.

The tweet explained that the tokens were stolen by someone who compiled vanity addresses that were eligible to receive ARB tokens, then generated similar addresses using vanity address generators, directing the airdropped tokens to them instead. The hacking of these vanity addresses makes it impossible for the original owners to claim their ARB tokens.

Several crypto users have expressed sadness as they tweeted about their stolen ARB tokens. Most individuals affected are unaware of the reason behind the loss and have no idea what to do about it.

Creating a vanity address requires using special software or services that could potentially compromise the security of users’ private keys. Hackers who gain access to the private key could steal any crypto assets tied to that address.

Arbitrum's token giveaway caused a lot of excitement and overwhelmed several websites. However, according to Nansen, there are still 428 million ARB tokens available to claim. As of late Thursday, around 240,000 addresses had not yet claimed their governance tokens, even though 61% of eligible crypto wallets had already done so. The 428 million unclaimed tokens, worth nearly $596 million at press time, represent 37% of the total 1.1 billion ARB allocated for Arbitrum’s airdrop.

Considering these figures, certain eligible addresses that haven’t been able to claim their token could be in the category of hacked addresses.

This isn’t the first time vanity addresses have been compromised by scammers in the crypto space. In January, Metamask warned crypto users about address poisoning.

Magazine: Features ‘Account abstraction’ supercharges Ethereum wallets: Dummies guide

Arbitrum airdrop sells-off at listing, but traders remain bullish on ARB

March 23, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Airdrop

ARB token sold-off upon listing at exchanges and some users reported a tech-issue laden claim experience, but the token could still follow the trajectory of previous airdrops.

The official Arbitrum airdrop page crashed right after the claiming process began around 9 a.m. EST. Some users still managed to claim it through alternative methods like Arbiscan. In the first two hours, the market witnessed a massive sell-off of the token as its price declined from over $10.29 to lows of $1.

At ByBit, the token started trading for $7.50, but dropped to $1.50 within minutes. At the time of writing, the token was trading at $1.33.

Only one address successfully sold the token at $10.29 through the ARB/USDC pool on Uniswap, bagging $64,340 for 6,250 tokens. A few others were able to sell for $4.50, however, the price dropped quickly below $1.50 as more sellers arrived.

*ARB/USDC trades on Uniswap. Source: GeckoTerminal*

Nansen data shows that out of 6.03 million ARB claimed by “smart money” wallets, $5.01 million were moved to a centralized or a decentralized exchange, most likely to sell. The analytics firm puts “smart money” tags on addresses that trade in significant size and are usually active.

*Flow of ARB token across “smart money” wallets. Source: Nansen*

While some smart money accounts added 3.45 million from DEXs. Overall, the amount moved to exchanges was 150% larger than inflows to the wallets, suggesting a massive sell-off.

Poor claiming experience for the average user

The Aribtrum airdrop claim web page crashed thanks to overwhelming requests from users to claim ARB tokens. The page returned 404 and 429 errors, remaining down for more than an hour after the claiming process began.

Nevertheless, some users still claimed the airdrop through alternative services like Arbiscan. The blockchain explorer witnessed a record number of visitors of over 84,000 in the first 30 minutes after the claiming window opened.

Nansen’s data shows that 15% of the airdrop claims were processed when the official Arbitrum webpage was down.

However, the claims through Arbiscan were far from smooth. The website also suffered from downtime due to traffic overload, creating a bad user experience for many.

https://twitter.com/TheDeFinvestor/status/1638926204169494528

The token claiming widow will be alive for 184 days till September 24, 2023.

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Arbitrum Airdrop Goes Live: ARB Price Drops More Than 85%

March 23, 2023 Bitcoin.com

ARB Token Airdrop: Anticipation Spurs IOU Markets for Arbitrum’s Native Cryptocurrency Asset

March 23, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Arbitrum token finds its way to OTC market before the airdrop

March 21, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Airdrop

Following the Arbitrum airdrop announcement, crypto users who have been eligible for the airdrop are already selling them in OTC markets.

The Arbitrum community is speculating and selling off their unreleased ARB tokens in over-the-counter (OTC) markets following the Arbitrum airdrop announcement.

The Arbitrum Foundation announced that ARB, Arbritrum’s new token, will be airdropped to eligible community members on Thursday, March 23. It explained that ARB marks Arbitrum’s official transition into a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO), meaning ARB holders will be able to vote on key decisions governing Arbitrum One and Arbitrum Nova — networks that allow users to transact on the Ethereum blockchain with better speeds and lower fees.

OTC trading allows easy buying and selling of cryptocurrencies directly between a seller and a buyer. The process is usually very fast and funds are transferred directly from a bank account to the seller. In this case, when a price is agreed on by the buyer and seller, the seller receives payment from the buyer and then gives up the seed phrase linked to the eligible wallet.

Jack, who wants to remain anonymous, has explained to Cointelegraph that the craze to sell off the unreleased ARB tokens is based on speculations about the market cap of the tokens when launched. He explained that the price of one $ARB coin, when launched, could be as high as $1, so most people do not mind selling at $0.5 per token and giving room for a possible profit of $0.5 for the buyers.

have secured 6-figs of $ARB OTC at an avg. price of $0.98

wish me luck
— Cole (@cole0x) March 21, 2023

Arbitrum holds 55% of the Ethereum layer-2 market share, according to layer-2 analytics site L2 Beat. As one of the largest crypto projects without a token, anticipation for an Arbitrum token has been at a fever pitch since the network went live in 2021.

With the ARB’s total circulation number of 10 billion, The Arbitrum community will control 56% of those tokens – the airdrop will grant 11.5% of the total supply to eligible Arbitrum users and 1.1% to DAOs that operate in the Arbitrum ecosystem.

The Arbitrum community has also warned others to stay vigilant after reports of phishing websites and scams offering Arbitrum airdrop tokens.

Arbitrum’s main competitor in the Ethereum scaling space, Optimism, launched its OP token nearly a year ago when it made its own transition to DAO governance.

DefiLlama resolves internal strife, sends LLAMA token plans alpaca’n

March 21, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Airdrop

After resolving the issue internally, the forked variant of its analytics platform now redirects to the official website.

Decentralized finance (Defi) analytics platform DefiLlama appears to have resolved the internal conflict within its team that had earlier threatened a “forking” of the platform.

Potential trouble at DefiLlama was first revealed when developer 0xngmi claimed in a March 19 Twitter post that DefiLlama was “undergoing a hostile takeover,” with the launching of a token called "LLAMA" without employee approval or support.

In response, the parent company of DefiLlama accused “0xngmi and a few team members” to have “gone rogue” by looking to seize DefiLlama’s intellectual property while “inaccurately claiming the rightful owner to be doing a hostile takeover.”

However only a day later, it appears the internal conflict has reached a resolution.

3/3 All arms of @LlamaCorpOrg will continue to cooperate with each other in developing open and transparent solutions for the decentralized world we love so much.
— DefiLlama.com (@DefiLlama) March 20, 2023

In a March 20 Twitter thread, the DefiLlama team apologized for the debacle, putting it down to “poor communication and a misunderstanding within the team” while clarifying that a new token was not being planned.

“We would like to put what happened behind us. There is no LLAMA token currently planned, and any airdrop will be discussed with the community, as every important decision is. We will take steps to operate in a more transparent manner to ensure this doesn't happen again.”

0xngmi, the developer that was accused of having “gone rogue” has confirmed that the internal issues have been resolved and that they will remain on board.

Tweeting on March 20, Oxngmi stated that “everything has been solved, fork has been canceled,” and that “all work will continue on DeFiLlama.”

Tendeeno, a contributor who primarily works on other projects under the Llama Corp. umbrella, also confirmed that after “back and forth” the team has resolved the issues and decided to run DefiLlama “as normal.”

The contributor has also assured everyone on the team was happy with the outcome.

After a lot of back and forth, the team has resolved the issues internally and have decided to continue running DL as normal

the team wants to move on and not continue the conversation in public, but rest assured everyone at DL is happy with the outcomehttps://t.co/jaHQSbAYDZ
— Tendeeno (@Tendeeno_) March 20, 2023

The website that 0xngmi prompted the community to switch to in their March 19 tweet now simply redirects to the official DefiLlama platform.

For everybody who is asking: everything has been solved and all work will continue on https://t.co/8b11M6Yk9u, https://t.co/G0h4uBo2mL will just be redirecting there
— 0xngmi (llamazip arc) (@0xngmi) March 20, 2023

DefiLlama is a multi-chain DeFi analytics platform that is generally known for providing data relating to the total value locked (TVL) and trading volume on DeFi platforms.

Beware of fake Arbitrum Airdrops, community warns

March 20, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Airdrop

The community has warned others to stay vigilant after reports of phishing websites and scams offering Arbitrum Airdrop tokens.

Ethereum layer-2 scaling solution Arbitrum's upcoming "ARB" token Airdrop appears to have become a popular target for scammers, with the community warning of hundreds of phishing scams aimed at tricking crypto users.

Announced in a March 16 post by the Arbitrum Foundation, the airdrop will send out 10 billion governance tokens via a token airdrop, allowing holders to vote on code changes. The airdrop is set for March 23.

Unfortunately, the development has led to more than a few attempts from scammers to set up fake token airdrops aimed at stealing funds from victims ahead of the officially slated event.

Blockchain security company Redefine in a March 19 post said it found a website impersonating an official Arbitrum airdrop website. The screenshots show a user is asked by the website to allow access to their funds, which would presumably result in the scammers draining th wallet.

*Blockchain security company Redefine has found several websites impersonating official Arbitrum airdrop website. Source: Redefine*

CertiK, another blockchain security firm pointed to a fake Arbitrum Twitter account with the user name “@arbitrum_launch” — which is advertising a token Airdrop. It has warned users not to interact with it.

#CertiKSkynetAlert

Be aware of a fake @arbitrum Twitter account which is advertising a token Airdrop.

Do not interact with this Airdrop.

Always verify Twitter accounts and URLs from trusted sources.

Stay vigilant! pic.twitter.com/gTlSNRzd6l
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) March 19, 2023

Meanwhile, Reddit user CryptoMaximalist posted a thread on March 19, warning that "scammers are hoping to capitalize on the complexity of crypto and users excited for free money."

According to CryptoMaximalist, they found fake "Arbitrum" Twitter profiles with links to fake Arbitrum websites, advising everyone to check a user's profile and history, and check if they are spamming links across many subreddits before clicking on shared links.

Last week, Web3 anti-scam tool Scam Sniffer told its Twitter followers that it had already detected more than 273 phishing sites related to Arbitrum since the token airdrop was announced, with the number expected to rise before the official drop on March 23.

Gm, $ARB airdrop holders! ☀️

We found a lot of scam accounts calling you to claim airdrop! Don't trust!

Only legal website: https://t.co/zjxfLBnn9I

The following 6 accounts are official @arbitrum @arbitrum_cn @arbitrumcore @ArbitrumDevs @arbitrum_intern @OffchainLabs… https://t.co/F0ADoE6Lwd pic.twitter.com/0nEqEsnH8k
— ANDAO (,) (@ArbitrumNewsDAO) March 19, 2023

According to the Arbitrum Foundation, a points system was used to determine who could claim the token airdrop and how many they can claim.

Qualifying actions included completing more than four transactions or interacting with at least four smart contracts, bridging funds into the chain Arbitrum One and depositing more than $50,000 of liquidity into Arbitrum.

Blockchain analytics firm Nansen, which helped develop the criteria with Arbitrum, revealed that out of more than 2.3 million wallets bridged on the Arbitrum One chain before Feb. 6, only 625,143 are eligible for the airdrop.

The Arbitrum Airdrop had a long list of eligibility criteria. Source: Nansen

"Organic activity earned positive (behaviors to encourage) or negative behaviors to discourage) points. The number of tokens that a wallet received in the airdrop was a function of how many points it collected,” Nansen explained in a tweet on March 16.

Airdrop