How much was lost in the Walletreum hack?

The Walletreum hack resulted in $138K in losses on November 15, 2020.

What attack technique was used in the Walletreum exploit?

The Walletreum 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.

Walletreum Hack

TOTAL LOST $138K

Low Nov 15, 2020 Rugpull ethereum

Affected Chain ethereum Incident surface

Recovered - No recovery reported

All-Time Rank #1417 By amount stolen

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull Target category

Incident Overview

Quick Summary

Walletreum's project deployer abused the mint() function and extracted $138k from the project and its investors.

Details of the Exploit

Walletreum was supposed to be an innovative crypto asset management tool focussing on lending and borrowing and real-world application. Unfortunately, the smart contract had malicious functions embedded that allowed the project deployer to mint as many $WALT token as desired.

In fact, the contract deployer used the mint() function to generate 500 billion tokens onto an external wallet:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc0f3b057…4710e5

The EOA wallet exchanged the minted tokens for 138,439 $USDT.

https://bloxy.info/txs/calls_from/0x665f3841…29d358?signature_id=1102183&smart_contract_address_bin=0x7a250d56…f2488d

The $USDT 138,439 were exchanged for $ETH:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xc47c26a8…6e7f15

Then the attacker decided to swap all of the $ETH in his wallet for 156,120 USDT:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xe20d10e7…fce7ac

Then funds were then transferred to Binance in multiple transactions as can be seen in the example transactions:

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xf9cf08f5…0f221f

https://etherscan.io/tx/0xcce3eacb…7217f9

Block Data

Scanner

Project Deployer:

https://etherscan.io/address/0xa5e552e3…aee775

EOA Scammer Wallet:

https://etherscan.io/address/0x665f3841…29d358

Incident Report

Protocol / Project Walletreum

Date of Incident November 15, 2020

Affected Chain(s) ethereum

Attack Technique Rugpull

Classification Borrowing and Lending

Primary Source View Post-Mortem

Protocol Information

Protocol Type Exit Scam/Rugpull

Affected Token WALT

Official Website walletreum.com/

Protocol Twitter/X @walletreum

Team Anonymous

Source Code Unverified

Market Context at Time of Hack

Protocol Links

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 Walletreum's contract logic - root cause: borrowing and lending

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 Walletreum, these are the critical security checks that could have prevented this incident (November 2020).

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://archive.ph/6b3Sd
02
de.fi Analysis https://t.me/defiyield_ann/222
03
Web Archive https://web.archive.org/web/20200918222824/https://walletreum.com/

Threat Assessment

Severity Level

LOW

Attack Vector Rugpull
Root Cause Borrowing and Lending
Year 2020

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