Pawnfi Hack

TOTAL LOST $633K
Low Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #948 By amount stolen
Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Pawnfi, an Ethereum-based NFT project, was exploited resulting in a loss of 633,411 $USD.

Details of the Exploit

Several Pawnfi contracts including ApeStaking were exploited, leading to a total funds loss of 633,441 $USD worth of 366.77 $ETH. The attacker transferred 100 $ETH through TornadoCash and the remaining 266.77 $ETH to another EOA address, which currently holds the stolen funds.

Block Data Reference

Attacker Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x8f7370D5…b514cC

Funds Holder Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xcd12d441…ff7b2d

Malicious Transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe855cc3b…af0864

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x8d303637…7a59a5

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x94fbebf0…705602

Funds Transfer Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc62899a9…056e7b

Funds Transfer to TornadoCash Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xf83afda6…a05118

Incident Report

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

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Other
Official Website pawnfi.com/
Protocol Twitter/X @PawnfiOfficial
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 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 Pawnfi's contract logic - root cause: nft
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
Audited by PeckShield Inc. — still lost $633K. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Pawnfi, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (June 2023).

  • 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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Security Audit History

Sources & References

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