4 ms·

Crypto Dev Enters Wrong Command, Destroys Entire Company

52 points by sysadm1n 4y ago

jjk166 4y ago
Stories like these make it seem so much more plausible that an evil villain's volcano lair would have a self destruct button on the main control console.
- thegagne 4y ago
  Behold, my decentralized bank-inator (for kids)! I loved the banks as a child because they gave me candy suckers, but now I hate them because they won’t loan me any money for my inators, and won’t give me candy suckers! I’ll show them! They’ll be the suckers now!
smt88 4y ago
Further technical explanation here: https://twitter.com/OptifiLabs/status/1564367455220219904 https://twitter.com/OptifiLabs/status/1564367455220219904
- mdaniel 4y ago
  https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1564367455220219904.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1564367455220219904.html
puffoflogic 4y ago
> We immediately searched the relevant topic on Solana discord, and also asked a core dev from Solana Welcome to clownworld, where searching discord for "is there any way to recover $X millions" is something you do after putting all of your users' assets in. To clarify: mistakes happen, but being so unaware of the consequences that you feel a random discord is a more authoritative source than your own understanding indicates more than a little negligence.
hoppyhoppy2 4y ago
Also discussed 6 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32673000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32673000
naikrovek 4y ago
- bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
  This doesn’t reveal anything about cryptocurrency though? It reveals stuff about Dylyn and the company that hired them.
  - 411111111111111 4y ago
    It shows that they're working as intended, which is generally not what a consumer or corporation wants from a currency... Even if some people aren't aware of this.
  - Analemma_ 4y ago
    It reveals absolutely everything about cryptocurrency. This kind of error is simply not possible with traditional finance, and that’s a good thing.
- noSyncCloud 4y ago
- glennvtx 4y ago
  The banks are the sham, not crypto. Crypto is new, it will eventually replace the legacy financial system. Being a Luddite is not a way forward, processes will improve, the systems will mature. this is the akin to the "bagphone" era of cellphone adoption, blockchain technologies will eventually prevail.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    How much money of customers did bagphones burn in comparison to incidents like this?
  - postalrat 4y ago
    IMO the biggest test for crypto will be when the crypto part starts to break due to better math, faster computers, whatever. Suddenly everyone who wants can "own" anything crypto.
harporoeder 4y ago
Reminds me of when Knight Capital lost $440 million dollars due to a software error (1) purely without crypto. 1. https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/knight-capital-says-trading-mishap-cost-it-440-million/ https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/...
- helf 4y ago
  Key difference here is that a glitch cost Knight Capital money … not shuttering if the entire platform :P
jbirer 4y ago
I have been contracting as a blockchain developer for the past 4 years. The clients have very little insight into the technology and have 0 standards in who they hire, they just hire whoever sounds good. Scammers from India can just throw a few buzzwords and get an upfront fee then disappear. The clients hire the cheapest offer then come and complain to us about what happened.
IXxXI 4y ago
No data backups of the blockchain could be found?
cesarvarela 4y ago
I haven't deployed anything serious to ethereum mainnet and yet the stress of getting the command right and not messing up the private key or something is real, like no other deployment that I have ever experienced. I'm very curious how this will be solved (if ever), because no matter how good your process is, errors will happen, and boom! there goes your company/money/whatever.
awill88 4y ago
I don’t get it, could someone who understands explain how this worked out? Like, wasn’t it on some kind of blockchain? like did they send their stake to the “ether”? (buh dum tiss) This isn’t making obvious sense to me based on how very little I have paid attention to what these defi platforms actually do.. aren’t the coins and exchanges just nodes and a P2P distributed database with consensus driven transaction records, asymmetric encryption, metadata and some rules?
- spiralx 4y ago
  The smart contract that ran everything and owned the accounts with the money in was ended by the dev, via a simple command in their CLI I believe. Presumably he had meant to pause it or some other interaction, but there were no protections against the command being executed and so it went through.

52 points by sysadm1n 4y ago

Stories like these make it seem so much more plausible that an evil villain's volcano lair would have a self destruct button on the main control console.

thegagne 4y ago
Behold, my decentralized bank-inator (for kids)! I loved the banks as a child because they gave me candy suckers, but now I hate them because they won’t loan me any money for my inators, and won’t give me candy suckers! I’ll show them! They’ll be the suckers now!

smt88 4y ago

Further technical explanation here: https://twitter.com/OptifiLabs/status/1564367455220219904 https://twitter.com/OptifiLabs/status/1564367455220219904

mdaniel 4y ago
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1564367455220219904.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1564367455220219904.html

puffoflogic 4y ago

> We immediately searched the relevant topic on Solana discord, and also asked a core dev from Solana Welcome to clownworld, where searching discord for "is there any way to recover $X millions" is something you do after putting all of your users' assets in. To clarify: mistakes happen, but being so unaware of the consequences that you feel a random discord is a more authoritative source than your own understanding indicates more than a little negligence.

hoppyhoppy2 4y ago

Also discussed 6 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32673000 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32673000

naikrovek 4y ago

bitxbitxbitcoin 4y ago
This doesn’t reveal anything about cryptocurrency though? It reveals stuff about Dylyn and the company that hired them.
- 411111111111111 4y ago
  It shows that they're working as intended, which is generally not what a consumer or corporation wants from a currency... Even if some people aren't aware of this.
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  It reveals absolutely everything about cryptocurrency. This kind of error is simply not possible with traditional finance, and that’s a good thing.
noSyncCloud 4y ago
glennvtx 4y ago
The banks are the sham, not crypto. Crypto is new, it will eventually replace the legacy financial system. Being a Luddite is not a way forward, processes will improve, the systems will mature. this is the akin to the "bagphone" era of cellphone adoption, blockchain technologies will eventually prevail.
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  How much money of customers did bagphones burn in comparison to incidents like this?
- postalrat 4y ago
  IMO the biggest test for crypto will be when the crypto part starts to break due to better math, faster computers, whatever. Suddenly everyone who wants can "own" anything crypto.

harporoeder 4y ago

Reminds me of when Knight Capital lost $440 million dollars due to a software error (1) purely without crypto. 1. https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/knight-capital-says-trading-mishap-cost-it-440-million/ https://archive.nytimes.com/dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/08/02/...

helf 4y ago
Key difference here is that a glitch cost Knight Capital money … not shuttering if the entire platform :P

jbirer 4y ago

I have been contracting as a blockchain developer for the past 4 years. The clients have very little insight into the technology and have 0 standards in who they hire, they just hire whoever sounds good. Scammers from India can just throw a few buzzwords and get an upfront fee then disappear. The clients hire the cheapest offer then come and complain to us about what happened.

IXxXI 4y ago

No data backups of the blockchain could be found?

cesarvarela 4y ago

I haven't deployed anything serious to ethereum mainnet and yet the stress of getting the command right and not messing up the private key or something is real, like no other deployment that I have ever experienced. I'm very curious how this will be solved (if ever), because no matter how good your process is, errors will happen, and boom! there goes your company/money/whatever.

awill88 4y ago

I don’t get it, could someone who understands explain how this worked out? Like, wasn’t it on some kind of blockchain? like did they send their stake to the “ether”? (buh dum tiss) This isn’t making obvious sense to me based on how very little I have paid attention to what these defi platforms actually do.. aren’t the coins and exchanges just nodes and a P2P distributed database with consensus driven transaction records, asymmetric encryption, metadata and some rules?

spiralx 4y ago
The smart contract that ran everything and owned the accounts with the money in was ended by the dev, via a simple command in their CLI I believe. Presumably he had meant to pause it or some other interaction, but there were no protections against the command being executed and so it went through.