Particle Trade Hack

TOTAL LOST $142K
Low Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2024 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #1413 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Algo-Stables Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Particle trade, a decentralized leverage trading protocol, was exploited, resulting in the loss of 141,684 USD worth 50.12 WETH.

Details of the Exploit

Particle trade is a permissionless decentralized leverage trading protocol for any digital asset. On February 15, 2024, the project was exploited due to a contract vulnerability in its previously deprecated NFT contract. The contract does not check the user input data for onERC721Received() function which make the order 'legit' and manipulated the accountBalance.

The current protocol of Particle trade was not impacted by this security incident, confirmed by @wukong_particle in a post on the X. The attacker deposited the stolen funds into TornadoCash.

Block Data Reference

Attacker Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x2c903F97…3f5559

Malicious Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x2cc3c3cf…83514a

Malicious Contract Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xE55607B2…77Ef8F

TornadoCash Deposit Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x4bb78bbf…47bcc4

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x32fe57bd…220894

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Particle Trade
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification Other
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Algo-Stables
Official Website www.particle.trade/
Protocol Twitter/X @particle_trade
Team Anonymous
Source Code Verified On-Chain

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories
Interoperability Smart Contracts Wallet BNB Chain Ecosystem Layer 1 Binance HODLer Airdrops Binance Wallet IDO Binance Ecosystem
Protocol Links
GitHub Discord

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 Particle Trade'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? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Particle Trade, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (February 2024).

  • 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

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Sources & References

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