How much was lost in the MetaDAO hack?

The MetaDAO hack resulted in $2.8M in losses on December 27, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the MetaDAO exploit?

The MetaDAO exploit utilized Honeypot. 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.

MetaDAO Hack

TOTAL LOST $2.8M

Medium Dec 27, 2021 Honeypot

Affected Chain 2021 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #575 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Services Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

The MetaDao Honeypot caused investors approx. $ 2,8 million in damages.

Details of the Exploit

MetaDAO claimed to be the DAO of DAO´s, building a new decentralized universe when in fact the project was a Honeypot all along. The $META token was configured in such a way that it could not be sold on decentralized exchanges, meaning investors funds were trapped. The contract deployer added initial liquidity at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x2322e3e2…a52ac9

Once the project took on steam, the contract deployer unlocked liquidity and removed $ETH from the pair in the following example transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xfb75d381…9303c2

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xfb684e20…fb7c26

The Stolen funds were funneled through the Tornado Cash mixer, example transactions:

1) https://etherscan.io/tx/0xaaccf3a1…ff76db

2) https://etherscan.io/tx/0x998014ee…d09578

3) https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe1693a07…953292

Block Data Reference

The contract deployer possibly blocked token transfers:

https://honeypot.is/ethereum.html?address=0x6795a960…dd79e4

Incident Report

Protocol / Project MetaDAO

Date of Incident December 27, 2021

Attack Technique Honeypot

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Services

Affected Token META

Official Website MetalL2.com

Protocol Twitter/X @metadao

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

Medium of Exchange Payments Layer 2 Metal Ecosystem Binance Ecosystem Binance Listing

Protocol Links

Discord Reddit

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 honeypot 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 MetaDAO'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? Likely — with a thorough Honeypot audit checklist and test coverage

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

Verify all logic paths related to Honeypot 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/PeckShieldAlert/status/1475434691939520523

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Honeypot
Root Cause Token
Year 2021

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