Ethereum layer 2s hold $13.5B stablecoin supply

December 20, 2024 Coin Telegraph

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.

7 DeFi protocol hacks in Feb sees $21 million in funds pilfered: DefiLlama

March 6, 2023 Coin Telegraph

7 DeFi protocol hacks in Feb sees million in funds pilfered: DefiLlama

Coin Telegraph

DeFi platforms lost over $21 million to hackers throughout February, according to data released by DeFi project aggregator DefiLlama.

Reentrancy, price oracle attacks and exploits across seven protocols caused the decentralized finance (DeFi) space to bleed at least $21 million in crypto in February.

According to DeFi-centric data analytics platform DefiLlama, one of the largest in the month was the flash loan reentrancy attack on Platypus Finance, which led to $8.5 million of funds lost.

DefiLlama highlighted six other noteworthy hacks in the month, the first being the price oracle attack on BonqDAO on Feb 1.

*DeFi platforms suffered seven attacks throughout February. Source: DefiLlama*

BonqDAO: $1.7 million

BonqDAO revealed to its followers in a Feb. 1 post that its Bonq protocol was exposed to an oracle attack that allowed the exploiter to manipulate the price of the AllianceBlock (ALBT) token.

The exploiter increased the ALBT price and minted large amounts of BEUR. The BEUR was then swapped for other tokens on Uniswap. Then, the price was decreased to almost zero, which triggered the liquidation of ALBT troves.

Blockchain security firm PeckShield estimated the losses to be around $120 million, however, it was later revealed hackers reportedly only cashed out around $1 million due to a lack of liquidity on BonqDAO.

Orion Protocol: $3 million

Just a day later, decentralized exchange Orion Protocol suffered a loss of roughly $3 million on Feb. 2 through a reentrancy attack, where attackers used a malicious smart contract to drain funds from a target with repeated withdrawal orders.

We have been investigating this very sophisticated attack from the minutes it occurred. We will not reopen the Deposit function until we feel confident that the bug has been fixed which will only be after successfully passing new audits from leading audit firms.
— Alexey Koloskov (@alexeykoloskov) February 2, 2023

Orion Protocol CEO Alexey Koloskov confirmed the attack at the time, assuring everyone, "All users' funds are safe and secure."

"We have reasons to believe that the issue was not a result of any shortcomings in our core protocol code, but rather might have been caused by a vulnerability in mixing third-party libraries in one of the smart contracts used by our experimental and private brokers," he said.

dForce Network: $3.65 million

DeFi protocol dForce network was another February victim of a reentrancy attack resulting in losses of around $3.65 million.

In a Feb. 10 post, dForce confirmed the exploit; however in a twist, all funds were returned when the hacker came forward as a whitehat hacker.

2/5 Shortly after the incident, we entered into conversations with the exploiter, who came forward as a whitehat. We have agreed to offer a bounty and will drop all on-going investigation and law enforcement actions.
— dForce (@dForcenet) February 13, 2023

“On Feb. 13, 2023, the exploited funds were fully returned to our multi-sig on both Arbitrum and Optimism, a perfect ending for all,” dForce said.

Platypus Finance: $9.1 million

On Feb. 16, DeFi protocol Platypus Finance suffered a flash loan attack resulting in $8.5 million being drained from the protocol.

A post-mortem report from Platypus auditor Omniscia noted that the attack was possible because of code in the wrong order.

On Feb. 23, the team announced that they are seeking to return around 78% of the main pool funds by reminting frozen stablecoins.

Updated compensation page

We have updated our compensation page today! If you have deposited or withdrawn LP tokens from our yield aggregators before the pool pause, your compensation amount will be updated accordingly.
More https://t.co/GfLIn5jmtF
— Platypus (++) (@Platypusdefi) March 3, 2023

The team also confirmed second and third incidents, which led to another $667,000 exploited, bringing total losses to around $9.1 million.

French police arrested two suspects related to the hack and seized around $222,000 worth of crypto assets on Feb. 25.

Hope Finance: $1.86 million

A few days later, users of arbitrum-based algorithmic stablecoin project, Hope Finance, fell prey to a smart contract exploit on Feb. 20, which saw roughly $2 million stolen from users.

#CommunityAlert @hope_fin have announced the community has been scammed for ~$2m making this the largest #exitscam on Arbitrum in 2023.

$1.86m was transferred to @TornadoCash.

Hope_fin have posted steps for user's to withdraw their staked LPhttps://t.co/hJbFXiKujt
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) February 21, 2023

Web3 security firm CertiK flagged the incident on Feb. 21, following an announcement from the Hope Finance Twitter account notifying users of the scam.

A member of the CertiK team told Cointelegraph at the time that the scammer had changed the details of the smart contract, which led to funds being drained from Hope Finance genesis protocol:

“It appears that the scammer changed the TradingHelper contract which meant that when 0x4481 calls OpenTrade on the GenesisRewardPool the funds are transferred to the scammer.”

Dexible: $2 million

Multichain exchange aggregator Dexible was hit by an exploit that targeted the app’s selfSwap function, with $2 million worth of cryptocurrency lost as a result of the Feb. 17 attack.

According to a Feb. 18 post from the exchange, “a hacker exploited a vulnerability in our newest smart contract. This allowed the hacker to steal funds from any wallet that had an unspent spend approval on the contract.”

Dear Dexible community, we regret to inform you that in the early hours of February 17th, a hacker exploited a vulnerability in our newest smart contract. This allowed the hacker to steal funds from any wallet that had an unspent spend approval on the contract.

1/5
— Dexible (@DexibleApp) February 17, 2023

After investigating, the Dexible team found the attacker had used the app’s selfSwap function to move over $2 million worth of crypto from users that had previously authorized the app to move their tokens.

After receiving the tokens into their own smart contract, the attacker withdrew the coins through Tornado Cash into unknown BNB wallets.

LaunchZone: $700,000

BNB Chain-based DeFi protocol LaunchZone had $700,000 worth of funds drained on Feb. 27.

According to blockchain security firm Immunefi, an attacker leveraged an unverified contract to drain the funds.

"An approval had been made to the unverified contract 473 days ago by the LaunchZone deployer," Immunefi said.

The February figures are a stark increase from January, according to DefiLlama figures.

The tracker lists only $740,000 in hacks to DeFi platforms in the month across two protocols — Midas Capital and ROE Finance.

In its 2023 Crypto Crime Report, blockchain data firm Chainalysis revealed that hackers stole $3.1 billion from DeFi protocols in 2022, accounting for more than 82% of the total amount stolen in the year.

Lido overtakes MakerDAO and now has the highest TVL in DeFi

January 2, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

A Nansen in December noted that Ether staking solutions had been in high demand since Ethereum’s shift to proof-of-stake.

Liquid staking protocol Lido Finance appears to have benefited most from the Ethereum merge in September, with its total value locked (TVL) now sitting at the top position among other decentralized finance (DeFi) protocols.

According to data from DeFiLlama, Lido’s liquid staking protocol now commands $5.9 billion in TVL, compared to MakerDAO's $5.89 billion and AAVE’s $3.7 billion.

Lido now has the highest TVL of any DeFi protocol. pic.twitter.com/2xsM3lVGVl
— Patrick | Dynamo DeFi (@Dynamo_Patrick) January 1, 2023

According to Lido Finance’s website, as at Jan. 2 had $5.8 billion Ether (ETH) staked. Meanwhile, there was around $23.2 million staked in Solana (SOL), $43.9 million in Polygon (MATIC), $11 million in Polkadot (DOT) and $2.2 million in Kusama (KSM).

Lido’s model allows users access to liquid Ether staking without committing to the traditional 32 ETH minimum.

Blockchain data analytics from Nansen in December noted that staking solutions such as these had been in high demand since Ethereum’s shift to proof-of-stake.

It’s report highlighted the impact of the Merge in introducing staked ETH as an out-and-out cryptocurrency-native yield-bearing instrument that has quickly outstripped other collateralized yield-bearing services.

Lido appears to have benefitted from this, as its fee revenue has been directly proportional to Ethereum Proof-of-stake (PoS) earnings since Lido sends received Ether to the staking protocol.

In Nov. 2022 that Lido said it has been collecting $1 million in fees every day since Oct. 2022.

Meanwhile, the governing body of the Maker protocol MakerDAO saw its revenue decline to just over $4 million in Q3, a 86% plunge from the previous quarter according to a Messari statement in Sept. 2022, citing few liquidations and weak loan demand as the reasons for the decline.

In that same month, Lido held the most amount of staked ETH amongst DeFi, with 31% according to Nansen in September, which is a significant amount compared to major crypto exchanges Coinbase and Kraken, holding 15% and 8.5% respectively.

Solana TVL drops 32.4% as FTX turmoil rocks ecosystem

November 10, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Alameda

Cryptocurrencies understood to have exposure to Sam Bankman-Fried, FTX, and Alameda Research appear to have been impacted the most.

The total value locked (TVL) on the Solana chain has plummeted 32.4% in the last 24 hours, as news stemming from the collapse of FTX has sent waves through the crypto ecosystem.

According to DefiLlama, at the time of writing, Solana’s TVL has fallen to $423.68 million, down 32.4% in the last 24 hours, a far cry from its all-time-high (ATH) of $10.17 billion on Nov. 9, 2021.

*Total value locked within the Solana ecosystem Source: DefiLlama*

TVL measures the total value of all assets locked into DeFi protocols. As TVL increases that means more coins are deposited within the DeFi protocols, and can indicate bullish sentiment, while a falling TVL shows that investors are pulling their funds out of the ecosystem for one reason or another.

The fall in TVL went as far as a 51.7% decline over 24 hours, however, but slightly corrected leading up to the writing of this article.

The Solana-based liquid staking protocol Marinade Finance has seen the biggest loss in TVL on the chain, having fallen 35.1% to $115.79 million within the last 24 hours.

Other major protocols on Solana have seen similar decreases over the last 24 hours, with automated market maker Raydium down 34.25%, liquid staking protocol Lido down 43.13% and lending protocol Solend down 63.07%.

Other leading blockchains have also seen decreases in TVL over the same time period, with Ethereum down 10.59%, Binance smart chain (BSC) down 9.68%, and Tron down 8.84%.

Sam Bankman-Fried (SBF), the founder of FTX and crypto hedge fund Alameda Research, had been an early investor in Solana though Alameda Research and cryptocurrencies exposed to SBF’s companies have been the hardest hit by the fallout.

Solana’s token (SOL), has also dropped heavily compared to its competitors, with the price falling 40.53% to $13.38 over the last 24 hours.

The token had briefly risen after news that Binance might end up acquiring FTX, but dropped after Binance backed out of the deal citing allegations of consumer funds being mishandled and an investigation from regulators.

Despite the recent challenges facing SOL, co-founder of Solana Labs Anatoly Yakovenko has reiterated his bullish stance on the network despite recent losses.

He pointed to the quality of builders and recent network-level improvements as big positives in a Nov. 9 tweet.

1/ I said this on stage at Breakpoint just a few days ago – the builders on Solana are second to none, and the projects they're building can often only be built on Solana.
— toly (@aeyakovenko) November 9, 2022

Throughout Solana’s annual conference, a range of announcements were made including a partnership with Google Cloud, the launch of the Solana App Store, and an upcoming smartphone.