Nirvana V1 Hack

TOTAL LOST $3.5M
Medium Flashloan Price Oracle Attack solana

Summarize with AI

Affected Chain solana Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #516 By amount stolen
Protocol Type CDP Target category

Incident Overview

ANA is a partially-collateralized asset with a built-in rising floor price & renewable yield. It allows for zero liquidation risk loans in the form of the NIRV superstable token.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Nirvana V1
Date of Incident
Affected Chain(s) solana
Attack Technique Flashloan Price Oracle Attack
Classification Ecosystem
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type CDP
Smart Contract Language Rust
Official Website nirvana.finance
Protocol Twitter/X @nirvana_fi

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Solana Ecosystem

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 flashloan price oracle attack and Rust/Anchor program internals and the Solana account model
Capital Required Seed capital to cover Solana network fees and initial position setup
On-Chain Access Ability to interact with solana Solana programs and deploy a custom exploit program or signer account
Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Nirvana V1's program logic - root cause: ecosystem
Execution Speed Precise transaction ordering and timing to exploit the vulnerability within a single Solana transaction (atomic across instructions)
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? Yes — skilled auditors routinely flag Flashloan Price Oracle Attack vulnerabilities in code review

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Nirvana V1, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (July 2022).

  • Verify all logic paths related to Flashloan Price Oracle Attack are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Flash Loans Attacks attack class for patterns
  • Audit oracle price feeds for manipulation risks - ensure time-weighted average prices (TWAPs) or multi-source aggregators are used, not spot prices
  • 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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Related Attack Classes

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

See all Flash Loans Attacks examples →

Sources & References

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