Merlin Hack

TOTAL LOST $334K
Low Incentive Rewards Exploit / Other binance bsc

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain binance 2 chains affected
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #1120 By amount stolen
Auditors 3 Prior security audits

Incident Overview

The attacker's address:

https://bscscan.com/address/0x2bADa393…1645BD

"Via the smart contract, a hacker deposited 0.1WBNB into the vault and then manually transferred 1000BNB into the contract to trick the contract into thinking it has received 1000BNB in rewards, which resulted in the minter producing MERL rewards."

Stolen funds were bridged into Ethereum mainnet at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x7926165e…11346a

Deposited into Tornado Cash mixer at:

https://bloxy.info/ru/txs/transfers_from/0x2bada393…1645bd?currency_id=1

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Merlin
Date of Incident
Affected Chain(s) binance bsc
Attack Technique Incentive Rewards Exploit / Other
Classification Protocol Logic / Yield Aggregator
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Yield
Affected Token MERL
Smart Contract Language Solidity
Official Website merlinlab.com/farm
Protocol Twitter/X @MerlinLab_
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
AI & Big Data Distributed Computing DeFi Zero Knowledge Proofs Scaling Ethereum Ecosystem YZi Labs Portfolio Arrington XRP Capital Portfolio
Protocol Links
GitHub 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 incentive rewards exploit / other and Solidity and EVM internals
Capital Required Seed capital to cover gas and initial position setup
On-Chain Access Ability to interact with binance, bsc smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract
Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Merlin's contract logic - root cause: protocol logic / yield aggregator
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? Likely — with a thorough Incentive Rewards Exploit / Other audit checklist and test coverage
Audited by Certik, Hacken, DeFi Safety — still lost $334K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Merlin, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 2021).

  • Verify all logic paths related to Incentive Rewards Exploit / Other 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

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Security Audit History

Sources & References

Browse all hacks

These hacks used the same attack technique. Understanding the pattern helps prevent future exploits.

Safe Dollar $248K
Incentive Rewards Exploit / Other

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