Cryptocurrency [loss] $12M+

"DeFi Platform Cork Protocol Suffers $12M Smart Contract Exploit"

2025-05-28 [vendor] Cork Protocol [chain] ethereum
Primary Source ↗
Financial Loss $12.0M (12,000,000 USD)
Blockchain(s) Ethereum

Incident Details

Cork Protocol, a defi project aimed at “tokenizing the risk of depeg events for stablecoins and liquid (re)staking tokens”, suffered a $12 million loss after an attacker exploited a bug in how the project’s smart contract calculated exchange rates. The attacker stole around 3,762 wrapped staked ETH (wstETH), which they exchanged for ETH. The project announced that they were investigating the theft and had paused markets.Cork had been audited in whole or in part by four different security firms. The project’s funders include Andreessen Horowitz, OrangeDAO, and Steakhouse Financial, and Cork is a part of Andreessen Horowitz’s Crypto Startup Accelerator.

Total loss estimated at $12,000,000.

Technical Details

Initial Attack Vector
Smart contract exploit / hack
Vendor / Product
Cork Protocol

Timeline

  1. 2025-05-28 Breach occurred
  2. 2025-05-28 Publicly disclosed