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dYdX attacked, draining 40% of its insurance fund
dYdX experienced an unusual increase in open interest for YFI leading to huge sell-off.
matt kim
November 20, 2023
GM 👋
Over the weekend, Sam Altman went from getting fired from OpenAI to working with Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest investor.
Sam Altman is arguably the face of AI. OpenAI board’s decision to fire Sam and demote Chairman and President Greg Brockman (which led to Brockman's resignation) came abruptly, without their investors’ knowledge.
New interim CEO, Mira Murati and core team members also supported Sam.
Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO was furious and offered his support by hiring him to their “Advanced AI Research Team“.
Legally, Microsoft has rights to access all of GPT-4 and DALL E 3’s code and IP which is stored on Microsoft Azure.
Seems like Sam and the team will start their work at Microsoft from where they left off at OpenAI.
Major win for Microsoft!
PS: Pay forward by sharing this newsletter with at least 1 friend. 🤝
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dYdX Faces Market Manipulation Attack
The decentralized exchange dYdX recently found itself at the center of a market manipulation attack, leading to significant liquidations and a substantial dip in its insurance fund.
Here's a breakdown of the key events and responses:
The Attack
dYdX experienced an unusual increase in open interest (buys and sells) for YFI, the native token of Yearn Finance, soaring from $0.8 million to about $67 million.
YFI traded at a significantly higher rate on dYdX compared to other platforms.
Approximately $9 million from dYdX v3's insurance fund, about 40% of its total, was deployed to manage the liquidations.
The Response
dYdX raised the initial margin ratios for YFI and other less liquid markets as an immediate response.
Following the attack, YFI's price plunged by 35% within an hour.
A whale reportedly sold 96 YFI for around $1.23 million in ether before the token's value dropped.
dYdX is collaborating with centralized exchanges to investigate further and has announced bounties for helpful information.
The team is reporting their findings to the FBI and making strides in identifying the attacker.
After addressing the shortfall, $13.5 million remains in the insurance fund. No user funds were impacted by the attack.
The DYDX token dropped 15% in 48 hours, while YFI fell 38%.
Criticisms
The handling of the incident by dYdX has raised questions about its decentralized nature.
The attack happened on dYdX v3, which had a centralized order book and matching system, differing from the new dYdX chain with distinct risk controls.
Some community members and industry leaders criticized dYdX for its approach, suggesting a lack of true decentralization in its decision-making processes.
The attack comes amidst dYdX’s migration from Ethereum Layer 2 to its own Cosmos-based chain.
The introduction of a staking mechanism redistributing trading fees to DYDX stakers had previously fueled a significant rally in the token’s value.
This incident highlights the challenges decentralized exchanges face in maintaining security and stability, particularly when dealing with sophisticated market manipulation tactics.
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