How much was lost in the EASYPump hack?

The EASYPump hack resulted in $3K in losses on January 11, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the EASYPump exploit?

The EASYPump exploit utilized Honeypot. 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.

EASYPump Hack

TOTAL LOST $3K

Low Jan 11, 2021 Honeypot ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1999 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Launchpad Target category

Incident Overview

The contract owner could disable the transfer function, which restricted users in selling their tokens.

The contract deployer airdropped tokens to some external wallets before adding liquidity at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8434567b…fd568c

The contract deployer added initial liquidity at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xbbe2f8bf…08bade

The liquidity was removed by the contract deployer at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd3dde280…bfa687

Incident Report

Protocol / Project EASYPump

Date of Incident January 11, 2021

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Honeypot

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Launchpad

Affected Token EPUMP

Official Website gaspump.tg/#/onboarding

Protocol Twitter/X @gaspump_tv

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 honeypot 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 EASYPump'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 Honeypot audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to EASYPump, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (January 2021).

Verify all logic paths related to Honeypot 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

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CaptainJackAPE/status/1348570797745401857

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Honeypot
Root Cause Token
Year 2021

Learn to Prevent the Next EASYPump

The EASYPump 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