Neutrino USD Hack

TOTAL LOST $200M
Critical #45 All-Time Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #45 By amount stolen
Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

The algorithmic stablecoin USDN, which is designed to maintain a 1:1 ratio with the US dollar, lost its peg as its token backing, WAVES, saw a double-digit price slide. This caused USDN to fall by more than 15% to $0.83, wiping out $200 million in the process. Users need to lock in WAVES in Neutrino's smart contracts to mint USDN, and USDN redemptions have the opposite effect of destroying the stablecoin to unlock WAVES supply.

The fall in WAVES price comes after several Twitter handles accused the Waves team of manipulating the price of its native token through its decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Vires.finance. Waves CEO Sasha Ivanov dismissed the allegations and accused Alameda Research of manipulating the prices of WAVES. On Sunday, Ivanov submitted a new governance proposal, supposedly to keep speculative activities at bay. However, Crypto Twitter is up in arms against the proposal, calling it an attempt to subvert the system in favor of insiders and a "rug pull" on everyone who used the platform in good faith. Vires.finance is losing liquidity amid the controversy, with the total value locked in the DeFi platform dropping to $945 million from a record $1.26 billion in three days.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Neutrino USD
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification Stablecoin
Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2 View Post-Mortem #3

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Indexes
Affected Token USDN
Official Website neutrino.at/
Protocol Twitter/X @neutrino_proto?lang=en
Team Public / Doxxed
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Mineable
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 Deep understanding of other 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 Neutrino USD's contract logic - root cause: stablecoin
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 Other audit checklist and test coverage
Audited by Beosin — still lost $200M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Neutrino USD, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (April 2022).

  • Verify all logic paths related to 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

Master these auditing techniques with hands-on labs and real exploit scenarios in the Smart Contract Hacking course.

Free Trial

Security Audit History

Sources & References

Browse all hacks

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

DeFiTuna $570K
Other
Cascade $1.3M
Other
Lumi Finance $264K
Other
Hinkal $820K
Other
AIDCToken $121K
Other
Polymarket $3.0M
Other

Learn to Prevent the Next Neutrino USD

The Neutrino USD 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
Recreate exploit patterns safely Free Trial