How much was lost in the Bored Ape Yacht Club hack?

The Bored Ape Yacht Club hack resulted in $276K in losses on June 04, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the Bored Ape Yacht Club exploit?

The Bored Ape Yacht Club 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.

Bored Ape Yacht Club Hack

TOTAL LOST $276K

Low Jun 04, 2022 Other

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1176 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Other Target category

Incident Overview

The BAYC was exploited by EOA for ~149ETH.

First tx 42 ETH was sent to this address: https://etherscan.io/address/0x38ff5537…d988db

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7a63a4d5…498c13

Second tx 101.71 ETH was sent to address: https://etherscan.io/address/0xd869f5f8…126fa8

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x862c115e…4ca823

Third tx 5.3 ETH was sent to address: https://etherscan.io/address/0xd869f5f8…126fa8

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x3e9f7583…f22338

Then ETH was laundered via Tornado Cache:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x862c115e…4ca823

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x1a9f3701…78d936

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7644532f…edd5ff

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x36e4e53d…6b04c9

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x97160b5f…4b5576

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc212bca4…52735b

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x56ef8ef9…c7f560

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Bored Ape Yacht Club

Date of Incident June 04, 2022

Attack Technique Other

Classification NFT

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Other

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

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 Bored Ape Yacht Club'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? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Bored Ape Yacht Club, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 2022).

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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Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Other
Root Cause NFT
Year 2022

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