How much was lost in the GoodDollars hack?

The GoodDollars hack resulted in $628K in losses on December 16, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the GoodDollars exploit?

The GoodDollars exploit utilized Flash Loan Attack. 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.

GoodDollars Hack

TOTAL LOST $628K

Low Dec 16, 2023 Flash Loan Attack

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #950 By amount stolen

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

GoodDollar project on the Ethereum chain was exploited via a flash loan attack, resulting in the loss of 627,919 $USD worth of DAI.

Details of the Exploit

GoodDollar, a project on the Ethereum chain, was exploited on December 16, 2023, through a flash loan attack. The attacker took a flash loan from Balancer and managed to gain a significant amount of G$ tokens. These stolen funds were then swapped for DAI and currently remain at the EOA address controlled by the attacker.

Some of the stolen assets were bridged to the Celo Chain and remain there without being swapped. The total loss amounts to approximately 627,919 $USD worth of DAI.

Block Data Reference

Attacker Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x6738fa88…8f3fde

Funds Holder as of Dec 19, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x6c08f56f…08161b

Malicious Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x726459a4…7384d0

Malicious Contract Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xf06ab383…156ed6

Celo Bridging Transaction:

https://explorer.celo.org/tx/0x5b4f93f5…375491

This is classified as a Flash Loans Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project GoodDollars

Date of Incident December 16, 2023

Attack Technique Flash Loan Attack

Classification Other

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Yield

Affected Token GoodDollar

Official Website www.gooddollar.org/

Protocol Twitter/X @gooddollarorg

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Ethereum Ecosystem Celo Ecosystem

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 flash loan attack and Solidity and EVM internals

Capital Required Flash loan capital (borrowed atomically, zero upfront cost)

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

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in GoodDollars's contract logic - root cause: other

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 Flash Loan Attack vulnerabilities in code review

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $628K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

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

Verify all logic paths related to Flash Loan Attack are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Flash Loans Attacks attack class for patterns
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 Flash Loans Attacks examples →

Flash Loans Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/gooddollarorg/status/1736508442469089755
02
Web Archive https://archive.ph/K2d6A

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Flash Loan Attack
Root Cause Other
Year 2023

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