How much was lost in the Ultimate Set Dollar hack?

The Ultimate Set Dollar hack resulted in — in losses on January 02, 2021.

What attack technique was used in the Ultimate Set Dollar exploit?

The Ultimate Set Dollar 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.

Ultimate Set Dollar Hack

TOTAL LOST —

Jan 02, 2021 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

Same Technique 865 Total incidents

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

The minter of the token contract is an upgradable proxy contract. Upgradable proxy was used as MasterChef contract: https://etherscan.io/address/0x61ee8806…ad933d

The contract deployer added initial liquidity at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0x76950cb7…635e81

The unverified contract addressed the proxy contract by calling rebase() function 12 times:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x4d01e888…cd7d76#tokentxns

This led to the token mint directly onto the unverified contract, which finally sold minted tokens at:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xd1388359…cb4b63

The proxy contract was able to mint tokens by calling advance() function:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xa02b66f1…a3dd87

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Ultimate Set Dollar

Date of Incident January 02, 2021

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Stablecoin

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token ULD

Official Website ultimateset.finance/

Protocol Twitter/X @ULDfinance

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 ethereum smart contracts and deploy a custom exploit contract

Protocol Analysis Identification of the exploitable vulnerability in Ultimate Set Dollar's contract logic - root cause: stablecoin

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 Ultimate Set Dollar, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (January 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.

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Sources & References

01
Source 1 https://twitter.com/CaptainJackAPE/status/1344933208832368647

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

UNKNOWN

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Stablecoin
Year 2021

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