DeFi Platform Raft Suffers $3.3M Exploit, But Hacker Likely Took a Loss on the Attack

Decentralized finance (DeFi) platform Raft lost approximately $3.3 million worth of ether (ETH) after being hacked Friday afternoon – but the attacker may have suffered losses in the heist.

Data from the chain shows that the attacker stole 1,577 ETH from Raft and then sent 1,570 ETH to a fire address, destroying most of the stolen assets and leaving only 7 ETH for himself. The hacker’s address received 18 ETH via crypto mixing service Tornado Cash before the attack, blockchain data at Arkham shows, probably to finance trades.

After making the transfers and paying the blockchain fees, the operator’s crypto wallet was left with only 14 ETH, less money than the original 18 ETH.

This means that they experience a loss of 4 ETH during the entire maneuver.

Raft’s R-dollar-pegged stablecoin fell as much as 50% from its assumed price of $1 in the immediate aftermath, but later recovered to around 70 cents. Coin market capitalization data shows.

Raft co-financier David Garai confirmed this in a after on X (formerly Twitter) that the platform was the target of an attack. The operator minted R tokens, which were then sold to drain the liquidity of automated market makers, while at the same time withdrawing collateral from Raft, Garai explained.

“We are trying to make people whole using the sDAI proprietary protocol in the Peg Stability Module,” Garai told CoinDesk in a Telegram message.

Raft is a DeFi lending platform that issues the R stablecoin backed by liquid staking ether (ETH) derivatives such as Lido’s sETH. Users can create an R token when they lock ETH derivatives.

This was the second major crypto exploit on Friday. Earlier today, an attacker stole approximately $114 million in digital assets from the centralized exchange Poloniex.

UPDATE (Nov 11, 22:10 UTC): Adds context and details about Raft founder’s exploit.