How much was lost in the Kipcoin hack?

The Kipcoin hack resulted in $721K in losses on February 18, 2015.

What attack technique was used in the Kipcoin exploit?

The Kipcoin exploit utilized Access Control. 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.

Kipcoin Hack

TOTAL LOST $721K

Low Feb 18, 2015 Access Control

Affected Chain 2015 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #889 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control Target category

Incident Overview

The Chinese Bitcoin exchange Kipcoin announced that it lost some or all of its user’s bitcoins and will temporarily be shutting down. The exchange claimed to have lost over 3000 bitcoins in the hack. The announcement was made on the site’s Weibo page.

The hacker apparently gained access to Kipcoin’s server back in May and downloaded the wallet.dat file at that time. For months, according to Kipcoin, the hacker did nothing with the funds before beginning to move them in December 2014. It is not clear why the site didn’t secure its funds at that time.

The addresses Kipcoin claimed belong to the hacker:

1Chg6NxMeTcZ3DQvYA9gocjU4RQwH1LtKD

18zf9CWe4uBy8BesHU3BWqjpibDRRBoPLD

1MYkHXvnWuZ5FaMJkNv4uCLoVC2Ztp2DXK

152BSsbpcGMdj9WBGHq3wXHgJVuqQCs4aJ

16j131w3cvkdAc13sg5nREMiiJj3zoRw5n

16qHXy4RDeek56mNDN84d2F6niE96taQso

175L5Sx81dZZBureP8RtLUyUXoruVdAj1E

17ZJ1sqDRxq7oRVrnNLxoyrvHrtrjtPRfp

17amdMD8JJPcipWqUEwzEtsAuYu1FzkVtg

181qVdiaCcJmzGJV9PEobeYYnkC25PyJdT

18ncsALSWGWRG3JK6yio4PXoiWBbvxAxng

1XgAzaQEe9iDEohWCmdNXSH8XZ74uLBnd

This is classified as a Access Control Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Kipcoin

Date of Incident February 18, 2015

Attack Technique Access Control

Classification CeFi

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control

Official Website kipcoin.com/

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

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 Operational-security tradecraft (phishing, malware, leaked seed phrases, or insider access) to obtain treasury signing authority

Capital Required Minimal capital - only enough to cover gas while draining the compromised accounts

On-Chain Access Valid signing authority over the compromised wallets / multisig signers, allowing direct transfer of funds or stake authorization

Target Reconnaissance Identification of Kipcoin's high-value treasury accounts and the authority / multisig structure controlling them

Execution Speed Speed to drain the compromised accounts before the team detects the breach and revokes signing authority or freezes the assets

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? Likely — with a thorough Access Control audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Kipcoin, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (February 2015).

Verify all logic paths related to Access Control are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control 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.

Free Trial

Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Access Control Attacks examples →

Access Control Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://coinjournal.net/news/chinese-exchange-kipcoin-hacked/
02
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20140414030418/https://kipcoin.com/

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Access Control
Root Cause CeFi
Year 2015

Learn to Prevent the Next Kipcoin

The Kipcoin 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