How much was lost in the Photon-Swap hack?

The Photon-Swap hack resulted in — in losses on August 08, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the Photon-Swap exploit?

The Photon-Swap 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.

Photon-Swap Hack

TOTAL LOST —

Aug 08, 2021 Rugpull

Affected Chain 2021 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

Same Technique 865 Total incidents

Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

HoustonSwap is the first DEX to adopt the Concentrated Liquidity Market Making (CLMM) model on Aptos chain, providing automated liquidity provision strategies. The vision of HoustonSwap is to make better use of your capital — offering best trading rates for traders with low slippage equipped by CLMM, and minimizing impermanent losses for liquidity providers with best-in-class automated strategies, accompanied by the comprehensive borrowing functionality and automated bots

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Photon-Swap

Date of Incident August 08, 2021

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Exchange (DEX)

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs

Affected Token Photon-Swap

Official Website bsc.photon-swap.com/?refer=9D4c31a3f663…

Protocol Twitter/X @Houston_swap

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 Photon-Swap's contract logic - root cause: exchange (dex)

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

Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost —. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Photon-Swap, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (August 2021).

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.

Free Trial

Security Audit History

Audit Report 1 Report

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://bscscan.com/address/0x099c7ff2783CD9Bef5942352084a9d4D56…

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

UNKNOWN

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Exchange (DEX)
Year 2021

Learn to Prevent the Next Photon-Swap

The Photon-Swap hack is one of many attacks that skilled auditors are trained to detect before deployment. Master real exploit patterns and defense techniques with hands-on Web3 security training.

Start Free Trial Browse Attack Library