Tsuru On Base Contract Vulnerability
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Tsuru On Base was an NFT project launching NFTs featuring the colourful artwork of a Japanese Illustrator named Tsurushima Tatsumi on the Base blockchain. Unfortunately, it appears that the team botched the launch with a failing and vulnerable smart contract, which limited the ability for users to claim the NFTs and ultimately allowed for the minting of a large number of their $TSURU token, which were then liquidated for Ethereum via Uniswap. While the project team made massive efforts to compensate users after their mishap, it appears that the illustrator ultimately decided to walk away from the project a few days later, which likely spells the end of this NFT project.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]
About Tsurushima Tatsumi
"Tsurushima Tatsumi is a beloved japanese illustrator who has worked on many different web2 & web3 projects with his iconic colorful and cute character designs. His art was recently displayed on the Times Square during NFT NYC 2024.
"Specializing in vibrant and colorful illustrations as well as emotional artworks, I have worked on over 100 illustrations of Japanese idols to date. Additionally, my portfolio spans a wide range of works, including official merchandise illustrations for Hatsune Miku and Love Live!. I issued my first NFT in March 2021 and began my career as an NFT illustrator in earnest in October of the same year. I continue to be actively engaged in my work.""
About Tsuru On Base
"Tsuru embarks on a new journey on Base "
The Reality
This sections is included if a case involved deception or information that was unknown at the time. Examples include:
- When the service was actually started (if different than the "official story").
- Who actually ran a service and their own personal history.
- How the service was structured behind the scenes. (For example, there was no "trading bot".)
- Details of what audits reported and how vulnerabilities were missed during auditing.
What Happened
"According to the SlowMist Security Alert system, potential suspicious activities related to Tsuru have resulted in a loss of 138.78 ETH."
| Date | Event | Description |
|---|---|---|
| May 10th, 2024 5:09:00 AM MDT | Smart Contract Deplayment | The team deploys the smart contracts in preparation for the launch. |
| May 10th, 2024 5:50:00 AM MDT | Claim Website Opened | The claim website is opened and an official announcement is made on Twitter/X. |
| May 10th, 2024 6:30:00 AM MDT | Additional Vulnerability | The team hasn't yet fixed that problem, but instead identified another issue where users can claim $TSURU via directly calling the safeTransferFrom function in the $JOURNEY NFT contract in Base Scan, where parameters can be input manually to claim the $TSURU tokens. |
| May 10th, 2024 7:00:00 AM MDT | Isolated Out Of Gas Issue | The team reports that they have isolated the claim issue to be related to not supplying enough gas for the transaction to complete. At this point, it appears that users started minting $TSURU. |
| May 10th, 2024 7:49:01 AM MDT | Exploit Transaction Date | The reported timestamp of the exploit transaction on the Base blockchain. |
| May 10th, 2024 7:50:00 AM MDT | Exploit Noticed | While working on the above fix, the team reports an exploit where 167,200,000 $TSURU are minted from a specific wallet address, and then swapped to Ethereum via a Uniswap liquidity pool. |
| May 10th, 2024 8:19:00 AM MDT | SlowMist Tweet | SlowMist posts a tweet noting about the suspicious activity which they've detected. |
| May 10th, 2024 12:32:00 PM MDT | Tsuru Incident Report | Tsuru releases an update on Twitter with their path forward for their community and all affected users. They will be deploying a new token and using the remaining ETH in their treasury which they'd reserved for buybacks to buy back the new token. They are planning to airdrop tokens to all existing holders of the protocol. |
| May 10th, 2024 5:55:00 PM MDT | Claim Transaction Issue | The team realizes that their claim function doesn't work and starts working towards identifying the issue. "We have never experienced this in our various tests in Base Sepolia before the launch. We initially thought this would be an issue related to the mint/burn functions in the TRUSU Wrapper contract, so we dug into the TRUSU Wrapper contract to identify the issue." |
| May 13th, 2024 2:55:00 AM MDT | Artist Parting Ways | The Tsuru team announces that they are parting ways with the artist Tatsumi, specifically due to the recent exploit. |
Technical Details
This section includes specific detailed technical analysis of any security breaches which happened. What specific software vulnerabilities contributed to the problem and how were they exploited?
Total Amount Lost
"According to the SlowMist Security Alert system, potential suspicious activities related to Tsuru have resulted in a loss of 138.78 ETH."
The total amount lost has been estimated at $410,000 USD.
Immediate Reactions
How did the various parties involved (firm, platform, management, and/or affected individual(s)) deal with the events? Were services shut down? Were announcements made? Were groups formed?
Ultimate Outcome
"Going forward we aim to be deploying $NTSURU and using all remaining ETH that were reserved for buybacks and remove the remaining ETH from the current $TSURU LP to fund the LP of $NTSURU. This amounts to a total of 225 ETH for the new LP.
Furthermore, we will be airdropping all current JOURNEY holders 400 $NEWTSURU per 1 JOURNEY NFT after taking a snapshot. $NTSURU token distribution will be 50% airdrop and 50% LP.
Apologies again for the inconveniences. We will be updating on $NTSURU as soon as possible."
"However, recent challenges such as the exploited flaw by the hired development team, has led to the termination of this agreement. We are grateful for the contributions Tatsumi has brought to our project."
Total Amount Recovered
There do not appear to have been any funds recovered in this case.
What funds were recovered? What funds were reimbursed for those affected users?
Ongoing Developments
What parts of this case are still remaining to be concluded?
Individual Prevention Policies
No specific policies for individual prevention have yet been identified in this case.
For the full list of how to protect your funds as an individual, check our Prevention Policies for Individuals guide.
Platform Prevention Policies
Policies for platforms to take to prevent this situation have not yet been selected in this case.
For the full list of how to protect your funds as a financial service, check our Prevention Policies for Platforms guide.
Regulatory Prevention Policies
No specific regulatory policies have yet been identified in this case.
For the full list of regulatory policies that can prevent loss, check our Prevention Policies for Regulators guide.
References
- ↑ SlowMist Hacked - SlowMist Zone (May 30, 2024)
- ↑ @SlowMist_Team Twitter (May 31, 2024)
- ↑ @TsuruBase Twitter (May 31, 2024)
- ↑ @TsuruBase Twitter (May 31, 2024)
- ↑ $TSURU Exploit Incident Report | Tsuru on Base (May 31, 2024)
- ↑ BaseScan Transaction Hash (Txhash) Details | Base (May 31, 2024)
- ↑ Meet the Artist | Tsuru on Base (May 31, 2024)