Ormeus Coin Hack

TOTAL LOST $124M
Critical #70 All-Time Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #70 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Exit Scam/Other Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

John and JonAntina (Tina) Barksdale, the founders of the cryptocurrency project Ormeus Coin, have been charged with fraud by the SEC for allegedly deceiving investors and misrepresenting their mining operations, resulting in $124 million in losses for investors.

Details of the Exploit

John and JonAntina (Tina) Barksdale created the cryptocurrency Ormeus Coin, which they promoted through various channels, including crypto exchanges, roadshows, and YouTube. The SEC alleges that the siblings made false claims about their mining operations, stating that Ormeus Coin had a $250 million crypto-mining operation and was generating millions of dollars in mining revenue every month when in reality the operation was generating less than $3 million in revenue. The SEC filed charges against the Barksdales for violating federal securities laws, and the siblings are facing potential prison sentences of between 5 and 20 years.

The charges seek injunctive relief, disgorgement plus interest, and civil penalties. The Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York has also filed separate criminal charges against John Barksdale.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Ormeus Coin
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification CeFi
Primary Source View Post-Mortem #1 View Post-Mortem #2 View Post-Mortem #3

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Other
Official Website www.morebrand.co/
Protocol Twitter/X @getmorecoin
Team Public / Doxxed
Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Events Loyalty Entertainment Ethereum 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 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 Ormeus Coin's contract logic - root cause: cefi
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

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Ormeus Coin, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (March 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.

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