How much was lost in the Altsbit hack?

The Altsbit hack resulted in $303K in losses on February 05, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the Altsbit exploit?

The Altsbit exploit utilized Other. Understanding this attack vector is critical for smart contract auditors and developers building secure DeFi protocols.

How can developers prevent similar smart contract attacks?

Preventing smart contract hacks requires a combination of secure coding practices, thorough security audits, and understanding common attack vectors like reentrancy, oracle manipulation, and access control flaws. Smart Contract Hacking (SCH) provides hands-on training to help developers and auditors identify and prevent vulnerabilities before deployment.

Altsbit Hack

TOTAL LOST $303K

Low Feb 05, 2020 Other

Affected Chain 2020 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1139 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Other Target category

Incident Overview

Altsbit announced the breach, stating on Twitter: "Unfortunately we have to notify you with the fact that our exchange was hacked during the night and almost all funds from BTC, ETH, ARRR and VRSC were stolen. A small part of the funds are safe on cold wallets."

An update on the company's website indicated that "fortunately a good part of the coins were kept on cold storage" and that it will issue partial refunds, not having the wherewithal to fully compensate users.

The cryptocurrencies which have taken in the hack:

Bitcoin (BTC): 6,929 lost out of 14,782 held

Ether (ETH): 23,210 lost out of 32,262

Pirate Chain (ARRR): 3,924,082 lost out of 9,619,754

Verus Coin (VRSC): 414,154 lost out of 852,726

Komodo (KMD): 1,066 lost out of 48,015

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Altsbit

Date of Incident February 05, 2020

Attack Technique Other

Classification CeFi

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Other

Official Website altsbit.com/

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

What the Attacker Needed to Succeed

Understanding the prerequisites for this type of attack helps auditors identify protocols that are most at risk and helps developers build better defenses.

Technical Knowledge Deep understanding of other and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

On-Chain Access Ability to interact with smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Altsbit's contract logic - root cause: cefi

Execution Speed Precise transaction ordering and timing to exploit the vulnerability within a single atomic block

Obfuscation Plan A strategy to launder and move stolen funds - typically through mixers, cross-chain bridges, or decentralized DEX swaps to resist tracing

What Auditors Should Check

Could this have been caught in audit? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Altsbit, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (February 2020).

Verify all logic paths related to Other are guarded by proper access controls and input validation
Review privileged functions (owner, admin, governance) for potential abuse vectors - centralization risks should be documented and bounded with timelocks or multi-sigs

Master these auditing techniques with hands-on labs and real exploit scenarios in the Smart Contract Hacking course.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2020/02/10/new-crypto-exchange-…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Other
Root Cause CeFi
Year 2020

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