Ethereum liquidity provider XCarnival negotiates return of 50% stolen ETH

XCarnival, a liquidity provider for the Ethereum ecosystem, recovered 1,467 Ether (ETH) just a day after suffering an exploit that drained 3,087 ETH, worth roughly $3.8 million, from the protocol.

Blockchain investigator Peckshield noticed the XCarnival hack as it came across a stream of transactions that eventually bled 3,087 ETH from the protocol. Explaining the nature of the exploit, Peckshield stated:

“The hack is made possible by allowing a withdrawn pledged NFT to be still used as the collateral, which is then exploited by the hacker to drain assets from the pool.”

Soon after the revelation, XCarnival proactively informed the users about the hack while temporarily suspending a part of its services to counter the annoying attack. The protocol also offered the hacker 1,500 ETH as a bounty in addition to offering exemption from legal proceedings.

XCarnival was attacked on June 26, 2022 and suspended part of the protocol. XCarnival officials will give 0xb7CBB4d43F1e08327A90B32A8417688C9D0B800a owner 1500 ETH bounty.
At the same time, XCarnival officals explicitly exempt the person from legal action.
By XCarnival team
— XCarnival (@XCarnival_Lab) June 27, 2022

Eventually, XCarnival suspended the smart contracts and deposit and borrowing features until it could identify and rectify the internal bug that made the hack possible. According to Packshield, the hacker used a previously withdrawn pledged nonfungible token (NFT) from the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) collection as collateral to drain the assets.

Flowchart showing the transfer of the stolen XCarnival funds. Source: Peckshield

While the XCarnival hacker’s wallet showed the presence of 3,087 ETH after the hack, the remaining funds seem to be siphoned successfully — with the wallet showing 0 ETH at the time of writing.

ETH wallet balance of the XCarnival hacker. Source: etherscan.io

XCarnival announced plans to reveal details about the situation in time to come.

What could have been the story of the year turned out to be a disappointment after efforts from a white hat hacker to recover a locked phone full of Bitcoin (BTC) resulted in the discovery of just 0.00300861 BTC.

As Cointelegraph reported, Joe Grand, a computer engineer and hardware hacker, traveled from Portland to Seattle to potentially recover BTC from a Samsung Galaxy SIII phone owned by Lavar, a local bus operator.

Meticulous efforts that involved micro soldering, downloading the memory and discovering the Samsung’s swipe pattern for access, Lavar opened his MyCelium Bitcoin wallet and discovered only 0.00300861 BTC — worth $105 at the time, down to roughly $63 at the time of publication.