How much was lost in the Astronaut NFT hack?

The Astronaut NFT hack resulted in $187K in losses on February 08, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the Astronaut NFT exploit?

The Astronaut NFT exploit utilized Rugpull. 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.

Astronaut NFT Hack

TOTAL LOST $187K

Low Feb 08, 2021 Rugpull binance

Affected Chain binance Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1325 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

The contract deployer invoked mint() function to generate new tokens onto his wallet:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x7d4e6e05…db40dc

The contract deployer has sold tokens multiple times starting from this transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0xa23f6f33…5fd953

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Astronaut NFT

Date of Incident February 08, 2021

Affected Chain(s) binance

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification NFT

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token AST

Official Website www.astronautnft.com/

Protocol Twitter/X @AstronautNFT

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 rugpull and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Astronaut NFT's contract logic - root cause: nft

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? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Astronaut NFT, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (February 2021).

Verify all logic paths related to Rugpull 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://twitter.com/VidarTheAuditor/status/1358482278763094016
02
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20210206085731/https://www.astronaut…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause NFT
Year 2021

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