How much was lost in the Ordinals Finance hack?

The Ordinals Finance hack resulted in $1.0M in losses on April 24, 2023.

What attack technique was used in the Ordinals Finance exploit?

The Ordinals Finance 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.

Ordinals Finance Hack

TOTAL LOST $1.0M

Medium Apr 24, 2023 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #832 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Onchain Capital Allocator Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Ordinals Finance was rugpulled by the token deployer and two related addresses for 1,015,192 $USD.

Details of the Exploit

Ordinals Finance is a project that claimed it would build a protocol for developing decentralized finance (DeFi) applications on Bitcoin. However, this claim was false since the project used Ethereum to create its native $OFI token. The rugpull happened on the Ethereum chain where funds worth 1,015,192 $USD have been stolen.

The deployer withdrew $OFI tokens from the OFIStaking contract using a privileged function and swapped claimed tokens for $WETH before consolidating funds into one account under their control with the newly deployed OEBlock Token also being used in the attack.

Two deployer-related EOA addresses were identified as accomplices in draining WETH/OFI UniswapV2 pools using $OFI tokens while transferring 551 $ETH to TornadoCash.

Block Data Reference

Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x905bb314…fc7f6e

Related EOA addresses:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xa14AdAA4…591550

https://etherscan.io/address/0x524570E6…fa058a

Malicious Transactions:

Deployer Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe513b843…85694c

EOA Liquidity Removal Transaction Example:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xaaabf697…d0775d

TornadoCash Transfer Transaction Example:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc6b60395…6ae46b

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Ordinals Finance

Date of Incident April 24, 2023

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Other

Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Onchain Capital Allocator

Affected Token OFI

Official Website ordin.finance/

Protocol Twitter/X @ordinalsfinance

Team Anonymous

Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

AI & Big Data BNB Chain Ecosystem Binance Alpha DeFAI Binance Alpha Airdrops Binance Ecosystem

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 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 Ordinals Finance's contract logic - root cause: other

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 Ordinals Finance, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (April 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://cryptoslate.com/ordinals-finance-carries-out-1m-exit-scam/
02
Source 2 https://twitter.com/CertiKAlert/status/1650543396514148357?s=20

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Other
Year 2023

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