How much was lost in the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) hack?

The Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) hack resulted in $43K in losses on June 20, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) exploit?

The Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) 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.

Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) Hack

TOTAL LOST $43K

Low Jun 20, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1750 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Meme token GOAT conducted a rug pull on June 20th, resulting in the theft of approximately $43,168 (~23 ETH) from holders.

Details of the Exploit

The team behind $GOAT swapped 5,192,294,839,382,761 tokens for 23.214 Ether and proceeded to sell the ETH, leaving investors with no value. They then distributed the obtained funds to various wallets in an attempt to obfuscate their tracks and avoid accountability.

Block Data Reference

Swap tx:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa198cced…4ea0f6

Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xc74d2fe1…fc539c

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Greatest Of All Time (GOAT)

Date of Incident June 20, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token GOAT

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

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 Greatest Of All Time (GOAT)'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 Greatest Of All Time (GOAT), these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 2023).

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.

Free Trial

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/DeDotFiSecurity/status/1671745065847341056?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

Learn to Prevent the Next Greatest Of All Time (GOAT)

The Greatest Of All Time (GOAT) hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.

Start Free Trial Browse Attack Library