A very poor reward – At the beginning of August, the Nomad protocol was the target of an attack. In total, more than 190 million dollars were stolen from the protocol. Fortunately, part of the funds was returned by several dozen white hats. Now, protocol teams are trying to induce hackers to return the funds in exchange for a NFT exclusive.
Nomad hack: 190 million stolen
Nomad is a bridge protocol for sending funds from one blockchain to another. The transfer is done in two main steps:
- the user will deposit funds on the smart contract of channel A;
- the channel B smart contract will automatically release the same amount and send it to the wallet entered by the user.
On August 2, the protocol Nomad was the target of a large-scale attack. Thus, a hacker has found a flaw in the protocol. This made it possible to withdraw more money than what was initially deposited. It was therefore possible to deposit 100 on channel A to withdraw 1,000 on channel B.
Quickly, dozens of Internet users copied his transaction, gradually siphoning off all the $190 million present on the protocol.
After studying the transactions, it was obvious that several dozen ethical hackers had also taken part in the heist. Therefore, Nomad developers have set up a funds recovery address. Thus, they were able recover the equivalent of $36 million in ETH and other ERC-20 tokens.
>> Easier to handle than DeFi protocols? Register on PrimeXBT (commercial link). <<
An NFT to incentivize Nomad’s white hats
Obviously, the amount recovered is still far from the amount initially stolen. However, the day after the attack, Nomad told the white hats that they could keep 10% of the amount stolen as a reward.
Now, the teams have come up with a new way to incentivize users to return the funds. Thus, on August 23, the Nomad teams announcement a partnership with Metagame to offer an NFT exclusive to white hats.
In practice, attackers who have returned at least 90% of the stolen funds are eligible for this NFT.
An interesting attempt that did not receive the expected welcome from the community. Indeed, many Internet users began to mock the project in the comments.
Thereby, many have been questioning the usefulness of such an NFT during a time of crisis. Many criticized Nomad for wasting its time doing NFTs rather than solving the problem.
Subsequently, the Metagame teams quickly clarified the situation, stating that they were at the origin of the idea.
“It’s a Metagame idea, developed by Metagame. We just offered it to Nomad. They have much more important things to focus on! »
Given the first reactions, it’s a safe bet that this new incentive will have little effect. From now on, the Nomad teams will have to find an alternative to recover or compensate for the 130 million dollars which have not been returned.
At least, in this case, part of the funds could be recovered. In effect, the SudoRare NFT exchange protocol suffered a rug pull from the founders, only six hours after its launch. In this case, the victims have almost no hope of recovering their funds.
Hacks are unfortunate hazards but not inevitable. Play it safe and register now on the PrimeXBT platform (commercial link).