How much was lost in the ElectronDAO hack?

The ElectronDAO hack resulted in $729K in losses on November 25, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the ElectronDAO exploit?

The ElectronDAO 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.

ElectronDAO Hack

TOTAL LOST $729K

Low Nov 25, 2021 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2021 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #911 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

The project was holding a fundraising event using smart contract:

https://polygonscan.com/token/0xd54b5a3b…4e8130

Funds were received directly on the mentioned contract in the exchange of tokens:

https://polygonscan.com/tokentxns?a=0xd54b5a3b…4e8130&p=16

After the creation of the initial liquidity, tokens were removed from the pair together with fundraised DAI:

https://polygonscan.com/tx/0x2ef9d984…3ebbc2

Incident Report

Protocol / Project ElectronDAO

Date of Incident November 25, 2021

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Stablecoin

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type CDP

Affected Token ELECTRON

Official Website electrondao.finance/

Protocol Twitter/X @ElectronDAO

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Mineable

Protocol Links

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 ElectronDAO'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 $729K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

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

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://electrondao.finance/
02
Web Archive http://web.archive.org/web/20211116032834/https://electrondao.finance/

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Stablecoin
Year 2021

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