How much was lost in the ElonMVP hack?

The ElonMVP hack resulted in $44K in losses on July 13, 2022.

What attack technique was used in the ElonMVP exploit?

The ElonMVP 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.

ElonMVP Hack

TOTAL LOST $44K

Low Jul 13, 2022 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1745 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

The $ElonMVP token was rugpulled by its project deployer. The scammer received a profit of 170 $BNB. The scammers decided to launder the ill-gotten funds through tornado.cash's mixing service.

Tornado.cash mixes various ERC-20 Token and ETH into a lockbox. Through "zero knowledge proof" a user that deposits funds into a lockbox is provided with a unique key. Once the user decides to withdraw the funds, a proof of possession of the key in a hashed form is required. This process enables the transfer of funds without the disclosure of the users identity.

Details of the Exploit

The $ElonMVP project deployers wallet should have raised alert amongst the community from its inception. Reason was that the project deployer's address was funded from an address which was initially funded through tornado.cash, which can be seen in this transaction: https://bscscan.com/address/0xbf66c21f…44ee37#internaltx.

EOA wallet 0xbf66c funded a number of wallets and amongst it 0xbf66c funded the wallet of $ELONMVP's project deployer with $BNB 12 as can be seen in the example transaction: https://bscscan.com/tx/0xad1d3a78…fbc2f6.

The creator of the token created a liquidity pool between ElonMVP/BNB tokens, where $300 BNB was invested in these transactions:

1) https://bscscan.com/tx/0x403ee181…d8b928

2) https://bscscan.com/tx/0x1973aa35…4c7272.

Again the funds used to bootstrap the liquidity stemmed from Tornado.Cash;

https://bscscan.com/address/0xdd65cb76…93bdf6#internaltx.

Once the project gained traction, the project deployer removed the liquidity by taking a profit of ~$170 BNB: https://bscscan.com/tx/0x67f92de2…53b128

All the tokens were transferred to the scammer address (C) in this transaction: https://bscscan.com/tx/0xe1513999…6b82bf

Subsequently, all the funds were laundered via Tornado.Cash.

As the time of this writing information on this case is scarce. More sources will be added if the case should develop.

Block Data Reference

Involved addresses:

Token creator, scammer address(A): https://bscscan.com/address/0xdd65cb76…93bdf6

Scammer address (B): https://bscscan.com/address/0xbf66c21f…44ee37

Scammer address (C): https://bscscan.com/address/0x88795b97…d3ef38

Incident Report

Protocol / Project ElonMVP

Date of Incident July 13, 2022

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token ElonMVP

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

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 ElonMVP'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 ElonMVP, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (July 2022).

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://dexscreener.com/bsc/0xb9911cc70c0a323b4a95ff1743712a3ff7171c8e
02
Source 2 https://www.defidaonews.com/article/6757238

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2022

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