How much was lost in the ElasticSwap hack?

The ElasticSwap hack resulted in $854K in losses on December 13, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the ElasticSwap exploit?

The ElasticSwap exploit utilized Price Oracle Attack / 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.

ElasticSwap Hack

TOTAL LOST $854K

Low Dec 13, 2022 Price Oracle Attack / Other avalanche ethereum

Affected Chain avalanche 2 chains affected

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #867 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

On the 13th of December, 2022, Elastic Swap was hacked on the Avalanche and Ethereum Chain using a calculation issue. The malicious actor stole worth around 850k USD.

Details of the Exploit

The attack was possible in the reason of using two different logic of calculation in the exploited smart contracts. Functions addLiquidity and removeLiquidity have different logic of accounting. While the first one uses constant variables the second one is using dynamic pool balance calculation.

This led to the possibility of price manipulation after the pool unbalancing.

Block Data Reference

Avalanche:

Attacker address:

https://snowtrace.io/address/0x3bdf01ed…5743cd

https://snowtrace.io/address/0x25fde76a…103c56

https://snowtrace.io/address/0xdd8429b8…d60cbd

Exploit tx:

https://snowtrace.io/tx/0x782b2410…cd9b18

Ethereum:

Exploit tx:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc2d86035…f5cbda

Front-run tx:

https://t.co/YGMaRQj6Lk

This is classified as a Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project ElasticSwap

Date of Incident December 13, 2022

Affected Chain(s) avalanche ethereum

Attack Technique Price Oracle Attack / Other

Classification Ecosystem / Exchange (DEX)

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs

Affected Token TIC

Official Website elasticswap.org/

Protocol Twitter/X @ElasticSwap

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Art Content Creation Music Web3 BNB Chain Ecosystem Real World Assets Protocols Binance Alpha Binance Alpha Airdrops

Protocol Links

GitHub

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 price oracle attack / other and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in ElasticSwap's contract logic - root cause: ecosystem / exchange (dex)

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? Yes — skilled auditors routinely flag Price Oracle Attack / Other vulnerabilities in code review

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $854K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to ElasticSwap, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (December 2022).

Verify all logic paths related to Price Oracle Attack / Other are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation attack class for patterns
Audit oracle price feeds for manipulation risks - ensure time-weighted average prices (TWAPs) or multi-source aggregators are used, not spot prices
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

Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation examples →

Oracle Manipulation & Price Manipulation

Proof-of-Concept Exploits

1 PoC available

poc-exploits - elasticswap

$ ElasticSwap Business Logic Flaw

On-Chain Evidence & References

Post-Mortem https://quillaudits.medium.com/decoding-elastic-swaps-850k-explo…

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/ElasticSwap/status/1602582495819694081
02
Web Archive https://archive.vn/wip/cSkcV
03
Reference https://twitter.com/BlockSecTeam/status/1602848642066366466
04
Reference https://blog.solidityscan.com/elasticswap-hack-analysis-erroneou…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Price Oracle Attack / Other
Root Cause Ecosystem / Exchange (DEX)
Year 2022

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