Crypto obtained as a result of a flash loan attack on decentralized finance protocol Cream Finance is on the move.
The assailant swapped $1.75 million worth of Ethereum (ETH) 80 RenBTC, according to data provided by smart contract auditing firm PeckShield.
Smart contracts with vulnerabilities create lucrative arbitrage opportunities for hackers who can borrow plenty of funds without collateral with the help of flash loans. The entire flash loan takes place within a single transaction, which makes it a novel concept. The high complexity of such loans makes them an attractive tool for bad actors.
Last October, the troubled DeFi protocol was drained of $136 million. The attacker managed to borrow about half a million ETH tokens to successfully drain Cream Finance. Last February, a hacker managed to earn $37.5 million by pulling off a similar flash loan attack with Cream Finance.
Cream Finance has already suffered so many hacks that new flash loan attacks now appear to be completely mundane.
A Twitter user quipped, "If Cream Finance was a cat, they are down to five lives if my math is correct."
At this point, many users are wondering why the protocol still has many users after numerous crippling hacks.
Back in May, blockchain sleuth Chainalysis estimated that crypto lost from hacks this year surpassed $1.9 billion as of August.
Vladislav Sopov
Dan Burgin