How much was lost in the Deriswap hack?

The Deriswap hack resulted in $2.2M in losses on November 23, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the Deriswap exploit?

The Deriswap 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.

Deriswap Hack

TOTAL LOST $2.2M

Medium Nov 23, 2020 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #629 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

The anonymous team developed a bogus token - DWAP - and issued it on the Uniswap when Andre Cronje announced not released project named Deriswap.

The contract deployer added liquidity at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xf14b9d31…39effb

The liquidity was removed by the contract deployer at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xdc920baf…6742e6

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x0198716a…286d40

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xf7b8d681…a7bac4

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7ef9d371…e4be33

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Deriswap

Date of Incident November 23, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Stablecoin

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs

Affected Token DWAP

Official Website crypto.com/defi/swap

Protocol Twitter/X @cryptocom

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Solana 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 rugpull and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Deriswap's contract logic - root cause: stablecoin

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

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $2.2M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Deriswap, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (November 2020).

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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Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CaptainJackAPE/status/1330792133100376066
02
de.fi Analysis https://t.me/defiyield_ann/243

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Stablecoin
Year 2020

Learn to Prevent the Next Deriswap

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