How much was lost in the Ordinal DEX hack?

The Ordinal DEX hack resulted in $73K in losses on December 25, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Ordinal DEX exploit?

The Ordinal DEX 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.

Ordinal DEX Hack

TOTAL LOST $73K

Low Dec 25, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1622 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

ORDEX token experienced a rugpull incident on Dec 25, 2023, with a total loss of 72,848 USD.

Details of the Exploit

ORDEX is an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap. On Dec 25, 2023, the scammer removed liquidity from the LP pool, causing a significant loss in value. The deployer and the scammer then sent funds to a single address (another EOA) and distributed them between multiple addresses.

The total loss in this exit scam amounts to 72,848 USD, equivalent to 30.95 WETH.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x45747155…43ec7A

Scammer's Addresses:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x8a3F26Bb…252dCf

https://etherscan.io/address/0x69acbcdC…0A5403

https://etherscan.io/address/0x1fBfE151…4f0991

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x0ebfe897…303397

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Ordinal DEX

Date of Incident December 25, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Token

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token ORDEX

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

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 Ordinal DEX'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 Ordinal DEX, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (December 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/PeckShieldAlert/status/1739153975692361908?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Token
Year 2023

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