Source: Coin Edition

Last month, Pump.fun took the spotlight as it launched the first simplified memecoin launch and trading platform. For the past three months, memecoins have been the meta of the cycle with investors making millions (and losing it). Solana memecoins particularly have been having their fair share of attention and hype. In the midst of this, Pump.fun launched and garnered recognition, especially within the Solana community. As a launchpad, the platform allowed teams to create their own memecoins while acting as a platform to allow trading of those memecoins.

You can learn more about Pump.fun here.

On Thursday, the 16th of March 2024, the platform lost about $2M (12,300 SOL) to a flash loan exploit and the hack was carried out by a former employee, a dev who had privileged access to the company details. The exploiter goes by the name @STACCoverflow on X (formerly Twitter).

Flash loan: How the Exploit Happened

The exploiter who used the company's details took a flash loan from Marginfi (a popular Solana’s DeFi protocol). He borrowed SOL from Marginfi, used it to purchase some memecoins newly launched on Pump.fun until their bonding curve limits reached 100%, got access to the bonding curve liquidity of the coins, then he repaid the loan back to Marginfi (so Marginfi wasn't affected). Only 12,300 SOL from Pump.fun’s liquidity was affected as they took immediate action to stop the trade from continuing. Although the damages caused is estimated to be around $80 million.

Robin Hood of Crypto? What did @STACCoverflow do with the exploited funds?

Compared to the 90’s cartoon film titled Robin Hood who was an outlaw that stole from the rich to give to the poor, this exploiter has quite gotten a nickname from the crypto community on X.

According to an X post he made, he mentioned that he planned to distribute the stolen funds to random users. The ex-employee also mentioned that he had previously told the team about their platform’s vulnerability while expressing his anger towards how his former bosses at Pump(dot) fun treated the employees. We can call this some sort of “payback” from a disgruntled ex-employee.

According to his tweets made after the exploit, he isn't being discreet and he doesn't care about going to jail as the only thing he wants is his mom raised back to life.

What Happens with Pump Fun?

The team came out to announce that the platform is now back after the exploit, promising users a 0% trading fees for the next 7 days and that they'll be repaying the funds affected during the exploit. They also mentioned that there were working security experts within the space to fix up the vulnerability to ensure it doesn't happen again.

Although, I believe there will be skepticism from users to reuse the platform…at least for now.

Latest News on @STACCoverflow

Videos surfaced the Internet yesterday showing that the exploiter has been arrested by British law enforcement and is being sent to jail.