In a constructive improvement for the crypto neighborhood, the person chargeable for the GMX exploit accepted the platform’s bounty and returned over $40 million value of belongings stolen from the venture.
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Crypto Hacker Takes $42 Million From GMX
On Friday, the latest GMX V1 exploit ended on a cheerful word after the person chargeable for the incident changed into a white-hat hacker. Perpetual and spot crypto trade GMX misplaced over $40 million on Wednesday when an attacker exploited a vulnerability within the protocol’s first model on Arbitrum.
In keeping with on-line stories, GMX V1’s vault contract had a vulnerability that allowed the attacker to govern the GLP token price via the system’s calculations.
Blockchain safety agency SlowMist explained that “The basis reason for this assault stems from GMX v1’s design flaw, the place brief place operations instantly replace the worldwide brief common costs (globalShortAveragePrices), which instantly impacts the calculation of Property Below Administration (AUM), thereby permitting manipulation of GLP token pricing.”
Via a reentrancy assault, they efficiently established large brief positions to govern the worldwide common costs, artificially inflating GLP costs inside a single transaction and profiting via redemption operations.
Consequently, roughly $42 million value of belongings, together with Legacy Frax Greenback (FRAX), wrapped bitcoin (WBTC), wrapped ETH (WETH), and different tokens, have been transferred from the GLP pool to an unknown pockets.
The perpetual crypto trade halted GMX V1’s buying and selling and GLP’s minting and redeeming on each Arbitrum and Avalanche to stop one other assault and defend customers’ funds. Nevertheless, they clarified that the exploit was restricted to GMX’s V1 and its GLP pool. GMX V2, its markets, or liquidity swimming pools, and the GMX token weren’t affected and remained protected.
White-Hat Claims $5 Million Bounty
Following the incident, GMX despatched a message on-chain and on X offering a $5 million white-hat bounty to the attacker, claiming that their talents have been “evident to anybody trying into the exploit transactions.”
GMX’s workforce famous that returning the funds throughout the subsequent 48 hours and accepting the bounty would enable the hacker to “spend the funds freely,” as a substitute of taking extra dangers to entry them. Additionally they vowed to not pursue any authorized motion and to help the exploiter in offering proof of supply for the funds whether it is ever required.
Immediately, the exploiter responded in an on-chain message, accepting the bounty and beginning the return course of. As Lookonchain reported, they initially returned $10.49 million value of FRAX on Friday morning.
In the meantime, one other $32 million value of belongings had been swapped into 11,700 ETH, which at the moment are valued at $35 million after the King of Altcoins’ worth jumped to the $2,990 mark.
Within the following hours, the hacker returned 10,000 ETH, value $30 million, protecting only one,700 ETH, valued at $5.2 million, because the bounty.
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GMX later confirmed that the funds have now been safely returned and thanked the white-hat hacker for his or her actions, finally giving a constructive flip to the incident.
Lastly, they knowledgeable customers that “contributors are engaged on a proposed distribution plan for presentation to the GMX DAO and can share extra info shortly.”

Featured Picture from Unsplash.com, Chart from TradingView.com