ChainSwap Hack

TOTAL LOST $4.4M
Medium Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2021 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #460 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Dexs Target category

Incident Overview

The attacker's address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xEda50667…2D8113

On the Ethereum network, each token to be bridged has its own proxy Factory contract. The attacker was able to exploit the contract, minting tokens directly into different addresses, before reaccumulating them into the wallet from which the transactions were initially sent.

The attacker:

- called receive() function to the Factory minting contract

- dodged the sloppy auth check system using a new address as signature each tx

- paid 0.005 ETH chargeFee

- set to parameter to the desired address, which receives the minted volume

- repeated x times.

Using the NFT platform WilderWorld as an example, this is one of 40 repeated transactions, each of which produced 500,000 $WILD tokens.

These 20M WILD were subsequently sold for 650 WBNB, or little more than $200,000 USD, using PancakeSwap, essentially emptying the WILD/WBNB pool.

The example transaction:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x83b4adaf…dff723

Projects which got harmed:

- Wilder Worlds

- Antimatter

- Optionroom

- Umbrella Blank

- Nord

- Razor

- Peri

- Unido

- Oro

- Vortex

- Blank

- Unifarm

Incident Report

Protocol / Project ChainSwap
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification Bridge
Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs
Affected Token ASAP
Official Website chainswap.com/
Protocol Twitter/X @chain_swap
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Ethereum Ecosystem
Protocol Links

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 ChainSwap's contract logic - root cause: bridge
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 ChainSwap, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (July 2021).

  • 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.

Free Trial

Sources & References

Browse all hacks

These hacks used the same attack technique. Understanding the pattern helps prevent future exploits.

DeFiTuna $570K
Other
Cascade $1.3M
Other
Lumi Finance $264K
Other
Hinkal $820K
Other
AIDCToken $121K
Other
Polymarket $3.0M
Other

Learn to Prevent the Next ChainSwap

The ChainSwap hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.

Start Free Trial Browse Attack Library
Recreate exploit patterns safely Free Trial