How much was lost in the EDAO hack?

The EDAO hack resulted in $39K in losses on March 25, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the EDAO exploit?

The EDAO 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.

EDAO Hack

TOTAL LOST $39K

Low Mar 25, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1774 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Farm Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

On March 25, 2023, the team behind the EDAO token executed a rug pull, resulting in a loss of funds worth $39.3k USD.

Details of the Exploit

The EDAO token was dumped by the project team. Initial mint was dispersed between different addresses and on the 25th of March the massive sale event happened.

Block Data Reference

Swaps:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x2a446751547b0b6d22209aec4e6944f81daab2a770c72203e789a8de3ed40https://bscscan.com/token/0x900882be…0495c9?a=0x6fb985e3…c51cda

Initial mint:

https://bscscan.com/tx/0x1ccfde17…b5cb81

Incident Report

Protocol / Project EDAO

Date of Incident March 25, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Farm

Affected Token EDAO

Protocol Twitter/X @_veDAO_

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 rugpull 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 EDAO'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? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to EDAO, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (March 2023).

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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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1639624450059669506?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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