How much was lost in the Hatch DAO hack?

The Hatch DAO hack resulted in — in losses on October 11, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the Hatch DAO exploit?

The Hatch DAO 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.

Hatch DAO Hack

TOTAL LOST —

Oct 11, 2020 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

Same Technique 865 Total incidents

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

The contract deployer added initial liquidity at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x485f0a47…931dce

The contract deployer minted new tokens onto his wallet at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x33c247ca…d3fa1d

Minted tokens were sold by the contract deployer:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa67b7092…249d15

The difference between the initial liquidity and the one that was removed is not large, losses cannot be calculated correctly.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Hatch DAO

Date of Incident October 11, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Other

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token HATCH

Official Website hatchdao.finance/

Protocol Twitter/X @HatchDAO

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 ethereum smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Hatch DAO'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? Hard to catch — private key / OpSec failures are outside smart contract audit scope

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Hatch DAO, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (October 2020).

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://hackernoon.com/crypto-exit-scams-are-nothing-new-lets-ca…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

UNKNOWN

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Other
Year 2020

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