How much was lost in the DAO ventures hack?

The DAO ventures hack resulted in $39K in losses on July 11, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the DAO ventures exploit?

The DAO ventures 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.

DAO ventures Hack

TOTAL LOST $39K

Low Jul 11, 2021 Other

Affected Chain 2021 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1773 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Yield Target category

Incident Overview

DAOventures has been using ChainSwap to move $DVG between Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain.

ChainSwap was exploited and a number of projects that partnered with them got affected. On DAOventures’ side, the hacker removed 300k $DVG worth $40k from ChainSwap and sold them on Uniswap.

The transactions the hackers have made:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x348cfdb0…a1086c

Incident Report

Protocol / Project DAO ventures

Date of Incident July 11, 2021

Attack Technique Other

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Yield

Affected Token DVD

Official Website www.daoventures.co/

Protocol Twitter/X @VenturesDao

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 DAO ventures's contract logic - root cause: token

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 DAO ventures, 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.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://daoventuresco.medium.com/the-day-after-chainswap-exploit…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Other
Root Cause Token
Year 2021

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