How much was lost in the Memecoin hack?

The Memecoin hack resulted in $188K in losses on October 26, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Memecoin exploit?

The Memecoin 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.

Memecoin Hack

TOTAL LOST $188K

Low Oct 26, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1324 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Farm Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Fake MEME token rugpull by deployer, removing liquidity worth 188,095 USD from UniSwap pool, resulting in a total loss of 105.27 WETH.

Details of the Exploit

MEME is an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap. On Oct 26, 2023, the deployer performed a rugpull by dumping 564,231,958,802,870 MEME tokens and completely depleting the liquidity pool. In the same transaction, the stolen funds were sent to the scammer's address.

The scammer then transferred the funds to another EOA and used Dispers.app to distribute 98 ETH to 50 addresses.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x8697f6Bf…8F9bf5

Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x4649F627…9f9527

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd7e09b71…b44e1d

Stolen Funds Distribution Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x2f8fda5d…71d4cb

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Memecoin

Date of Incident October 26, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Farm

Affected Token MEME

Official Website www.memecoin.org/

Protocol Twitter/X @memecoin

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Collectibles & NFTs Memes Ethereum Ecosystem Binance Launchpool Binance Ecosystem Binance Listing

Protocol Links

Discord

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 Memecoin'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 Memecoin, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (October 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.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/AegisWeb3/status/1717364171137007648

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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