FEI Protocol ChainSwap Breach

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FEI Protocol

Fei Protocol is a new stablecoin. Some of their tokens use ChainSwap to exist on multiple blockchains, which required some funds to be stored in the smart contract hot wallet.

The ChainSwap bridge was hacked, and the attacker was able to obtain tokens from many projects, which were sold. Fei Protocol was listed as being a victim on numerous websites, but it does not appear they posted any announcement and no further information could be found on how the situation was resolved.

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

About FEI Protocol

"FEI is a new kind of stablecoin. It is more capital efficient, has a fair distribution, and is fully decentralized. The protocol uses the value it controls to maintain liquid secondary markets."

"The elegance of DeFi is the ability to offer the best possible financial solution in every category. But users today are forced to choose between frustrating options when looking for a decentralized stablecoin. On one side, there are bloated, debt-fueled overcollateralized stablecoins that cannot scale to meet demand. On the other are algorithmic stablecoins that fuel volatility and continuously centralize rewards in the hands of the earliest holders. To truly build DeFi’s vision of global interoperable financial access, there needs to be a decentralized, fair, liquid, and scalable stablecoin that exhibits a high fidelity peg."

"Stablecoins are a staple of DeFi. Users want to access dapps like Compound and Aave without worrying about volatility. However, each existing stablecoin model has a critical fault. Fiat-collateralized stablecoins like USDC and USDT are centrally controlled. This represents a regulatory risk and a point of failure for apps wishing to be truly decentralized. Crypto-collateralized stablecoins like DAI have scalability issues due to capital inefficiency. In other words, generating crypto-collateralized stablecoins requires an excess of collateral. They also require demand for debt or leverage to grow. Seigniorage models like ESD and Basis Cash centralize supply expansion rewards. This creates an unfair distribution in the growth of the stablecoin. In addition, liquidity providers are incentivized to withdraw at the first sign of danger."

"Fei Protocol was born in an attempt to solve all these issues. The inspiration for the vision of Fei Protocol comes from an ancient stone currency — Rai, or Fei, of the Micronesian island of Yap. We hope that the FEI stablecoin exhibits the same stability, simplicity, and ubiquity as its stone counterpart."

"The FEI stablecoin has an uncapped supply that tracks demand. FEI enters circulation via sale along a bonding curve. This curve approaches and fixes at the $1 peg. When new demand for FEI arises, users can acquire it by buying on the bonding curve." "Fei Protocol developed a Protocol Controlled Value (PCV) model, a subset of the concept of TVL, in which a platform outright owns the assets locked into the smart contracts. This is a stronger use case than the IOU common to most TVL applications, as the PCV is permanent. PCV gives the protocol more flexibility to engage in activities that are not profit-oriented. These activities can align with more fundamental goals, such as maintaining stability in the peg."

"We are excited to announce that FEI Protocol will be using ChainSwap technology to bridge their native token FEI USD and TRIBE between BSC and ETH." "Users can swiftly bridge FEI and TRIBE to BSC and ETH using ChainSwap."

"ChainSwap is a bridge protocol that links the Ethereum and Binance Smart Chain (BSC) blockchains." "It supports Binance Smart Chain, Ethereum, Polygon, and Huobi Eco Chain." "The ChainSwap hacker identified and exploited a vulnerability in the ChainSwap smart contract. This vulnerability enabled them to steal and mint new tokens for various protocols that were using the bridge to trade across Ethereum and BSC."

Investigation by ChainSwap revealed "a bug in the token cross-chain quota code. The on-chain swap bridge quota is automatically increased by the signature node, which is intended to be more decentralized without manual control. However, due to a logical flaw in code, this led to an exploit by allowing invalid addresses which weren’t whitelisted to automatically increase the amount."

"The attacker managed to take control of the projects’ BSC contracts by exploiting ChainSwap. The attacker minted tokens directly to their address, then sold them on BSC’s most popular decentralized exchange, PancakeSwap." "[T]he attacker used the PancakeSwap exchange to convert the stolen tokens to WBNB, DAI, and other tokens."

"Chainswap said it had already repurchased a small amount of the affected tokens from the market and returned the contract wallet. The rest will be paid out in full by the Chainswap vault." "ChainSwap team has now prepared and executed a compensation plan in consensus with the affected projects." "In order to bring everybody a more rigorous, efficient bridge, the next development model of ChainSwap will be adjusted to ensure maximum safety."

"For now, Chainswap has temporarily closed its cross-chain bridge." "ChainSwap worked with the police and OKEx to identify the attackers, and managed to negotiate the recovery of Corra and Rai tokens. An initial email with the attackers suggested the attackers return $1 million."

“Sorry for the trouble, you sound genuinely like great people but money is money,” the attackers of the earlier exploit told ChainSwap.

"ChainSwap is excited to announce that we have successfully integrated with Anyswap and Chainswap bridge is now live. We thank our community for its patience during the last few weeks."

This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.

The background of the exchange platform, service, or individuals involved, as it would have been seen or understood at the time of the events.

Include:

• Known history of when and how the service was started.
• What problems does the company or service claim to solve?
• What marketing materials were used by the firm or business?
• Audits performed, and excerpts that may have been included.
• Business registration documents shown (fake or legitimate).
• How were people recruited to participate?
• Public warnings and announcements prior to the event.

Don't Include:

• Any wording which directly states or implies that the business is/was illegitimate, or that a vulnerability existed.
• Anything that wasn't reasonably knowable at the time of the event.

There could be more than one section here. If the same platform is involved with multiple incidents, then it can be linked to a main article page.

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

The specific events of the loss and how it came about. What actually happened to cause the loss and some of the events leading up to it.

Key Event Timeline - FEI Protocol ChainSwap Breach

Date	Event	Description
July 11th, 2021	Main Event	Expand this into a brief description of what happened and the impact. If multiple lines are necessary, add them here.

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

The total amount lost is unknown.

How much was lost and how was it calculated? If there are conflicting reports, which are accurate and where does the discrepancy lie?

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

What was the end result? Was any investigation done? Were any individuals prosecuted? Was there a lawsuit? Was any tracing done?

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?

General Prevention Policies

Theoretically, decentralized finance will eventually result in hackers having exploited every vulnerability that exists. However, it's impossible to know when that will occur and if a contract is truly secure, as opposed to there still being an exploit that just hasn't been noticed yet. For any complex smart contract, it's impossible to prove security and plenty of fully audited contracts have been exploited.

Platforms should, generally, be prepared for the full loss of all assets stored in hot wallets (including smart contracts). Assets that do not need to be accessed quickly should be stored securely in a simple offline multi-signature wallet.

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.