CRV Token Faces "Fake Pump" on Korean Exchanges Amid Curve Finance Attack
Curve Finance is grappling with nearly $52 million in damages from a reentrancy vulnerability, prompting Upbit to suspend deposits and withdrawals of the DeFi platform’s CRV token.
CRV Token Experiences "Fake Pump" Due to Curve Finance Attack
Upbit Suspends CRV Transactions
According to Wu Blockchain, Upbit, the largest crypto exchange in South Korea, announced the suspension of CRV deposits and withdrawals on July 31, 2023.
In its announcement, Upbit stated:
"Today, certain vulnerabilities were discovered in some stablecoin pools related to Curve (CRV). As a result, CRV is currently experiencing significant volatility. We advise caution when considering any investments related to CRV.
"To ensure the safety of digital asset transactions, we have temporarily suspended the deposit and withdrawal of CRV tokens."
South Korea’s largest exchange, Upbit, announced that due to the attack on some of Curve’s stablecoin pools, CRV volatility is high, and Curve (CRV) deposit and withdrawal services have been suspended. https://t.co/cWPbMqH0gs
— Wu Blockchain (@WuBlockchain) July 31, 2023
As reported by Coin68 on July 30, 2023, the leading DeFi platform on Ethereum, Curve Finance, was attacked, affecting its liquidity pools.
The initial cause was identified as a reentrancy vulnerability in VyperLang versions 0.2.15/0.2.16/0.3.0. The anti-reentrancy guard in these versions was ineffective, leading to multiple attacks exploiting this flaw and causing up to $70 million in losses for Curve Finance.
The incident began on the evening of July 30, when JPEG'd, an NFT lending project, reported an exploit in its pETH-ETH liquidity pool on Curve Finance, resulting in $11 million in losses.
Later that evening, Metronome reported a similar exploit with $1.6 million in damages.
Subsequent projects such as Alchemix, deBridge, and Ellipsis also reported being exploited.
CRV Price Surges on Korean Exchanges
Following the attack, CRV’s price plummeted over 15% to $0.583 before recovering to $0.643 at the time of update.
However, the price of CRV in South Korean won (KRW) on Bithumb surged dramatically. At the time of writing, the CRV/KRW pair on Bithumb reached 6,300 KRW (approximately $4.93), increasing over 500% in a day.
This surge is attributed to the suspension of deposits and withdrawals, limiting CRV’s liquidity on Korean exchanges, leading to uncontrolled pump and dump activities and removing arbitrage opportunities with international markets.
Despite the attack being a "bad omen" for Curve, some crypto firms remain confident in CRV’s long-term prospects.
In the coming RWA wave, $crv is one of the most important infrastructures. I have BTFD. NFA.
— Jihan Wu (@JihanWu) July 31, 2023
Jihan Wu, co-founder of Bitmain and Matrixport, stated in a tweet:
"In the upcoming wave of RWAs, CRV is one of the most important infrastructures. I will be bottom-fishing. But this is not financial advice."
Justin Sun of Tron also expressed support for Curve and those affected by the hack.
Curve is an essential DeFi infrastructure for the blockchain industry. Our thoughts are with the team and users affected. As a community, let's support and strengthen the security measures to protect our decentralized ecosystem. We are here to support! 🤝
— H.E. Justin Sun 孙宇晨 (@justinsuntron) July 31, 2023
