Tinyman Hack

TOTAL LOST $3.0M
Medium Other

Summarize with AI

ChatGPT Perplexity Claude Grok
Affected Chain 2022 Incident surface
Recovered - No recovery reported
All-Time Rank #548 By amount stolen
Auditors 1 Prior security audit

Incident Overview

The attacker's address:

https://algoexplorer.io/address/RJROFHHDTCMDRCPYSBKN2ATSKZAPOPEV3KWR3IQEOIZMMZCPMMCEUTXGG4

The account’s first attack was this transaction group:

https://algoexplorer.io/tx/group/KbOlFc02lRAonvc4yfgpI%2FfkNrlP2FDHGX1ESAF2lvs%3D

A weakness in the project's smart contract code permitted the Tinyman hack. When a user invokes the protocol's burn function, they should be rewarded with two different tokens:

https://docs.tinyman.org/design-doc

The value of each token is determined by the quantity contained in the protocol.

The attacker took use of a flaw in the Tinyman pools' contract code, which enabled them to obtain the same token twice after a burn instead of two separate tokens. This worked in their favor since it allowed the attacker to take twice as many gobtc rather than a mixture of gobtc and ALGO tokens. Because gobtc is far more valuable than ALGO, the attacker was able to profit significantly and drain nearly $3 million in gobtc and goeth from the Tinyman pool across numerous transactions. These tokens were then exchanged for stablecoins in pools and withdrawn to various exchanges and wallets.

The original attacker's vulnerability was copied by other wallets that utilized it to attack the protocol. As a result, the Tinyman team advised all users to remove their funds from impacted pools.

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Tinyman
Date of Incident
Attack Technique Other
Classification Exchange (DEX)
Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Dexs
Official Website tinyman.org/
Protocol Twitter/X @tinymanorg
Team Anonymous
Source Code Unverified

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 Tinyman'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? Likely — with a thorough Other audit checklist and test coverage
Audited by Audit Report 1 — still lost $3.0M. Prior audits don't guarantee safety, especially after post-audit code changes.

If you're auditing a protocol with similar architecture to Tinyman, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (January 2022).

  • 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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