Largest DEX on the Base Chain, Leetswap, Attacked, Suffers Losses Exceeding $630,000 Updated on 8/3

The L2 blockchain Base, created by Coinbase, recently made headlines due to the short-lived meme coin $BALD, and now its largest decentralized exchange (DEX) on the chain has reportedly been exploited by hackers. The attackers allegedly obtained a total of 340 ETH, approximately $630,000, leading the official team to temporarily halt all transactions.

Learn more about the $BALD RugPull incident

Updated on August 3rd:

According to LeetSwap, approximately 400 ETH has been recovered, and the website and liquidity pool are scheduled to resume at 7 a.m. on Friday Taipei time.

Base Chain's DEX Faces Price Manipulation Attack

Yesterday, online researcher Igor Igamberdiev tweeted that the largest DEX on Base, LeetSwap, appears to have been exploited.

Web3 security team Beosin analyzed and confirmed that the axlUSD/WETH pool on the LeetSwap platform was subject to a price manipulation attack. The hacker mainly exploited specific public functions in the pairing contract to allow the transfer of axlUSD within the pairing contract, thereby boosting the token's price. The attacker then sold the tokens to profit in ETH.

The attack method and process have been confirmed by blockchain security monitoring companies such as PeckShield, BlockSec, and Certik. It is reported that the attack allegedly caused a loss of approximately 342.6 ETH, around $636,000 for LeetSwap.

Team Recovers Funds Gradually

Following the incident, the LeetSwap official team responded on Twitter:

We have noticed that the liquidity of some pools on the platform may have been compromised, so we have temporarily halted trading for investigation using Solidity's "safe pause" feature. We are also working with security experts to restore liquidity, and users can decide whether to remove liquidity themselves.

Earlier today, LeetSwap developer Gilgameš added that the project is actually a solo effort, and they have managed to recover about 220 ETH through white-hat hackers and security organizations. Due to security reasons, trading remains disabled for now.

Relaunching Website and Liquidity Pool Update on 8/3

On August 3rd, LeetSwap announced that they have recovered over 400 ETH, which will be distributed as rewards, with some funds allocated to white-hat hackers who assisted in the investigation.

They also mentioned that the website will relaunch at 7 AM Taipei time on Friday, and liquidity pools will be available for trading. To prevent server overload or DDoS attacks, they will establish backup sites as needed.

The funds in the pool have not been stolen and are currently in the smart contract. We have sought help to recover these funds and will assist users in retrieving them. Users who have incurred losses or wish to withdraw liquidity can contact us through the form that will be released later.

What is LeetSwap?

LeetSwap is a decentralized exchange (DEX) and decentralized finance (DeFi) system operating on blockchains such as Base,