Tellor Upgrade Proxy Error
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When upgrading the smart contract, Tellor had a failure which brought down their entire system.
It appears that everything is brought back online and recovered to a new smart contract, assuming the ETH pools on third parties became unstuck.
This is a global/international case not involving a specific country.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]
About Tellor
Tellor is "[a] decentralized oracle network." "A decentralized oracle on Ethereum enabling censorship-resistant access to off-chain data." "Tellor is a permissionless community of token holders, data providers, and validators. Together, we cryptographically secure putting real world data on-chain."
"Frederick-based Tellor started in March 2019, founded by Nicholas Fett, Brenda Loya, and Michael Zemrose. Fett's background as a former federal regulator with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) has given him a unique perspective: "The entire field is so dynamic and still relatively new. Most people are only beginning to understand its potential.""
"What attracted Fett was the ability to create financial solutions that are "community based, decentralized, and have the potential to be unstoppable.""
"On February 15, 2021, the Tellor system experienced a major error while deploying the upgrade to v2.6.1." "All current token balances are saved, however Tellor and TRB transfers are currently frozen."
"To allow a method for Tellor to upgrade without forking the entire system, we utilize a proxy contract that holds the functionality and then can switch/upgrade this contract through a token weighted vote. The upgrade to v2.6.1 contained a transition to an invalid proxy address, which had no functionality. This error was not caught in the proposal process and consequently was voted in favor for. Once the upgrade was deployed it essentially froze our system, the oracle, and our native token, TRB."
"The danger here should be palpable. A bad actor could add a function that lets them mint tokens or steal any ETH you send to the contract. It’s basically full control of any funds or data in the system and whoever owns this functionality (usually called an “admin key”) owns the system."
"The freezing of Tellor didn’t just break Tellor, it broke quite a lot of other contracts. The main ones being other defi contracts like Uniswap and Balancer. Since the original Tellor token can’t be transferred, all of the TRB AND ETH is locked for good. This means that the guaranteed APY of your pool is now zero. Luckily for those holders, the Tellor team is compensating them, but I don’t think many LP’s are aware how dependent they are on the projects whose tokens they provide liquidity for. A more malicious attack could lead to much more disastrous consequences."
"We are working diligently to resolve this issue quickly. As of this moment, our most likely course of action will be involving a redeployment of the Tellor contract, requiring a token swap. We will keep you guys up to date on the process as it happens."
"All the balances are saved so when we redeploy, you will be able to call a function (from the current address you hold your TRB) to get your tokens."
"Yesterday we deployed on Rinkeby, and will continue testing throughout today. Once finished, we’ll announce the next steps for the migration process."
"We have completed our mainnet testing and everything looks great! We are currently finalizing our updates to Tellor's tools (website, migrations, disputes, price feed, etc...)"
"All systems are go! White heavy check markWhite heavy check markWhite heavy check mark We are very happy to announce that the Tellor Oracle is back online and TRB migrations are ready to begin." "If you have custody of your TRB then all you have to do is visit https://tellorscan.com/migrate and follow the instructions."
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.
| Date | Event | Description |
|---|---|---|
| February 15th, 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
No user funds appear to have been lost in this case.
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
- ↑ List of Ethereum Smart Contracts Post-Mortems - Security - OpenZeppelin Community (Jun 23, 2021)
- ↑ @WeAreTellor Twitter (Jun 22, 2021)
- ↑ Tellor — a decentralized oracle network (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ Coinbase adds Tellor, a Frederick-based cryptocurrency startup (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ @wearetellor Twitter (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ @WeAreTellor Twitter (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ @WeAreTellor Twitter (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ @WeAreTellor Twitter (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ @WeAreTellor Twitter (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ @WeAreTellor Twitter (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ @WeAreTellor Twitter (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ @WeAreTellor Twitter (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ Trb Migration (Jul 29, 2021)
- ↑ Tellor Token V1 (Jul 29, 2021)