Celsius Network Hack

TOTAL LOST $1.2B
Critical #13 All-Time Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #13 By amount stolen
Protocol Type DePIN Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Celcius Network filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy after a month of halting the services. The approximate budget hole reached 1,190,000,000 $USD.

Details of the Exploit

Celsius is a centralized exchange and borrowing and earning protocol. Celsius Network filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on 13 July. The day after, it listed a 1,190,000,000 $USD deficit on its balance sheet.

The liabilities of the Celcius reached 5,500,000,000 $USD when their assets were valued at 4,300,000,000 $USD. The project halted operations on the platform a month before an announcement, citing "extreme market conditions".

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Celsius Network
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification CeFi,Borrowing and Lending
Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2 View Post-Mortem #3

Protocol Information

Protocol Type DePIN
Affected Token CEL
Official Website celsius.network/
Protocol Twitter/X @https://mobile.twitter.com/CelsiusNetwork
Team Public / Doxxed
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Storage Web3 Layer 1 DePIN Binance Alpha Binance Alpha Airdrops Binance Ecosystem
Protocol Links
GitHub Discord

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 Celsius Network's contract logic - root cause: cefi,borrowing and lending
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 Celsius Network, 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

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