How much was lost in the stazie hack?

The stazie hack resulted in $2.1M in losses on July 31, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the stazie exploit?

The stazie exploit utilized Access Control. 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.

stazie Hack

TOTAL LOST $2.1M

Medium Jul 31, 2021 Access Control

Affected Chain 2021 Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #625 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control Target category

Incident Overview

A fraudster known as "cryptopunksbot" promised NFT investors the chance to win one of ten exclusive NFT avatars on CryptoPunk's Discord server. Stazie, a co-founder of the NFT game project Hedgie, accepted the bogus offer, but it cost him 16 CryptoPunks, which might be worth more than $1 million. Stazie inadvertently sent the wallet seed phrase to the scammer, resulting in the funds' loss.

The hacker's address:

https://www.larvalabs.com/cryptopunks/accountinfo?account=0x7a1e3450…164a75

In addition to NFTs, the hacker managed to steal 839 ETH at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x2607e98b…791279

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x5bcd0bc7…28f7d8

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe6542d0b…652569

Stolen funds to the external wallet and deposited into Tornado Cash mixer:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x4d26d18d…0acca4#tokentxns

This is classified as a Access Control Attacks . Compare similar hacks →

Incident Report

Protocol / Project stazie

Date of Incident July 31, 2021

Attack Technique Access Control

Classification Other

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exploit/Access control

Official Website xdaichain.com/

Protocol Twitter/X @stazie

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Token Categories

DeFi Ethereum Ecosystem Exnetwork Capital Portfolio Gnosis Chain 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 Operational-security tradecraft (phishing, malware, leaked seed phrases, or insider access) to obtain treasury signing authority

Capital Required Minimal capital - only enough to cover gas while draining the compromised accounts

On-Chain Access Valid signing authority over the compromised wallets / multisig signers, allowing direct transfer of funds or stake authorization

Target Reconnaissance Identification of stazie's high-value treasury accounts and the authority / multisig structure controlling them

Execution Speed Speed to drain the compromised accounts before the team detects the breach and revokes signing authority or freezes the assets

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 Access Control audit checklist and test coverage

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

Verify all logic paths related to Access Control are guarded by proper access controls and input validation - see the Access Control Attacks attack class for patterns
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

Related Attack Classes

The technique used in this hack maps to these vulnerability classes in our security curriculum:

See all Access Control Attacks examples →

Access Control Attacks

Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/stazie/status/1421479497493360645

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

MEDIUM

Attack Vector Access Control
Root Cause Other
Year 2021

Learn to Prevent the Next stazie

The stazie 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