stoicDAO Hack

TOTAL LOST $205K
Low Rugpull

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2023 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #1286 By amount stolen
Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

The ZETA token was rugpulled , the scammer sold 91.63 WETH worth of tokens, removing liquidity from the UniSwap pool.

Details of the Exploit

ZETA is an ERC20 token trading on UniSwap. The scammer, with the alias "zetastaking.eth", received 100M ZETA tokens from the deployer on Nov 23, 2023. On Dec 11, 2023, the scammer removed liquidity worth 204,746 USD (91.63 WETH) from the LP pool.

Part of the stolen funds was transferred to another EOA and withdrawn through a chain of several addresses to the MEXC exchange, while another part remains in the scammer's address.

Block Data Reference

Deployer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x27AD0499…7D8a0B

Scammer Address:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x3f73d163…77e7dE

Liquidity Removal Transaction:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe16c121d…8c68c4

Funds Holder as of Dec 12, 2023:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xc9825436…5aFDd5

Token sending transaction from deployer to the scammer:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa88ce6ef…58b59c

Incident Report

Protocol / Project stoicDAO
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Rugpull
Classification Token
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull
Affected Token ZETA
Official Website www.stoicdao.io
Protocol Twitter/X @stoic_dao
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 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 stoicDAO's contract logic - root cause: token
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

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

  • 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.

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Sources & References

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