Empower AI Rug Pull

Reported loss $230K
Rugpull

What happened

Empower AI (EMPAI) is an Ethereum token with a 100,000,000 supply whose source treats one hard-coded address, 0xE4808c6b…FBf3bA (_empowerWallet), differently from every other holder: transfers sent from it skip the trading and size checks and are never subtracted from its own balance. It can therefore send tokens it does not hold into the pool and sell them for ETH. PeckShield reported on 2024-04-11 that this wallet dumped 1,000,000,000,000 EMPAI for about 66.44 WETH (about 237.5K USD), and that the token shares its name with a legitimate project.

De.Fi's REKT database lists the incident as an exit scam by the team with a loss of about 230K USD (66 ETH) through a Uniswap dump, with scammer address 0x484fd20d…6c1f6b, the 0xe4808c6b…fbf3ba contract and sell transaction 0xfdbcd2c9…cd033a.

How it happened

  1. The constructor hard-codes the privileged address and exempts it: _empowerWallet = payable(0xE4808c6b9fB741CAfA13b195CdBa45c27dFBf3bA); and _feeExemptForEmpower[_empowerWallet] = true;. The whole supply starts on the deployer (_balance[msg.sender] = _totalSupply;), and the deployer is not in this exempt list.
  2. For any other sender, _transfer first enforces launch and size limits: require(_tradingOpen != 0 && amount <= _maxTxSize, "Launch / Max TxAmount at launch");. That block runs only if (!_feeExemptForEmpower[from] && !_feeExemptForEmpower[to]), so a transfer from _empowerWallet is not subject to the trading switch or the per-transaction cap.
  3. The accounting then branches on the same flag: bool _takeTax = _isTakeFeeSwap(from, to); where _isTakeFeeSwap returns !_feeExemptForEmpower[from]. For ordinary senders takkingFees runs _balance[from] -= amount;. For the exempt wallet the code takes the other branch, _balance[to] += amount; followed by emit Transfer(from, to, amount);, and _balance[from] is never reduced and never checked against amount.
  4. The code therefore allows _empowerWallet to move any quantity to the Uniswap pair, or to anyone, with no balance behind it, and then call the pair to swap for ETH. Ordinary holders pay 30% buy and sell tax from startPowering (_taxEmpBuy = 30; _taxEmpSell = 30;) and reduceFees caps any later change at 10% (require(_feeOnBuy <= 10 && _feeOnSell <= 10);), while this wallet pays none.
  5. What happened: PeckShield Alert reported on 2024-04-11 that 0xE4808...f3bA dumped 1,000,000,000,000 EMPAI for about 66.44 WETH (about 237.5K USD) and that the price fell about 100%. That quantity is 10,000 times the 100,000,000 _totalSupply in the source, which is consistent with the undebited transfer in step 3. De.Fi lists the sell as transaction 0xfdbcd2c9…cd033a. The transaction itself was not opened, so the exact call path is not confirmed.

Protocol details

Classification Token
Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull
Affected asset / contract EMPAI
Protocol links Website @clubrare_nft

Evidence

Same attack technique

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