When the Ankr protocol based on the BNB Chain was exploited and a hacker dumped the Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB (aBNBc) tokens; A trader took advantage of the price discrepancies and turned $2,879 into $15.5 million.
Security firm Beosin has suggested that the multimillion-dollar exploit could have resulted from vulnerabilities in the smart contract token and private keys compromised due to a technology upgrade. After a hacker mined and dumped 20 trillion aBNBc tokens, the price of aBNBc dropped dramatically.
When this happened, the trader reacted quickly and took advantage of the opportunity. through on-chain data; Analytics platform Lookonchain recently shared how a trader managed to earn $15.5 million by forking his way through the Helio Protocol platform. According to Lookonchain, the trader bought 183,885 aBNBc with just 10 BNB after an Ankr scalper dumped aBNBc.
Then, the merchant deposited aBNBc to the Helio protocol and used the funds as collateral to borrow 16 million HAY tokens. In the end, the trader traded HAY for 15.5 million USD (BUSD); He made a profit of 5,209 times his original capital.
Apart from the losses incurred from the trade; The exploit may also have affected the total value of the locked Helio. Before the attack, HAY Stablecoin had about $87 million in TVL. However, at the time of writing; DefiLlama decentralized financial data tracker revealed that HAY now has $0 in TVL.
In an announcement to its community, the Helio Protocol assured users that their assets are secure and that all of their BNBs are within validators. At this time; The protocol suspended all of its functionality and asked HAY holders to refrain from any transactions.
After recently demanding decentralized exchanges to stop trading; Anker stated that it will reissue aBNBc tokens. The platform promised that it would assess the situation and compensate the affected users.
Meanwhile, cryptocurrency exchange Binance paused Ankr token withdrawals and froze $3 million in assets that the hacker transferred to the exchange.
