It became known about the plans of the management of DEX dYdX to sell the third version of the trading protocol, and a few hours before the site dYdX v3 was hacked.
DEX dYdX is considering selling part of its derivatives trading software to Wintermute Trading and Selini Capital. Bloomberg reported this, citing knowledgeable sources. According to the publication, it’s about selling the third version of the trading protocol dYdX.
At about the same time as the information about the deal appeared, the dYdX v3 site was compromised, as reported by project representatives. The attack affected only the dydx.exchange domain, where the third version of the protocol was located. Users were asked not to go to the site and do not click on any links.
Only the dYdX v3 site was attacked. The fourth version hosted on the dydx.trade domain wasn’t affected. The attack also didn’t affect the smart contracts of the third version of the protocol. The attackers compromised only the site’s user interface, so the user funds placed in the protocol remained safe. The only interaction with the site interface was a threat, as the attacker could temporarily gain control of the protocol’s domain name due to the DNS attack.
It took about an hour before the effects of the attack were removed. After another hour, representatives of the dYdX Trading Group said they were “exploring strategic alternatives related to the v3 technology.” No specific decisions were announced, but it was emphasized that DYDX token holders would, in any case, make the final decision through a vote. Despite the success of dYdX v3, the project team plans to focus on developing dYdX Chain.
There’s no objective information about the relationship between the attack on the trading protocol site and plans to sell it. Still, community representatives reacted negatively to the news about the sale prospect.
Attackers significantly diversified their methods of illegally expropriating funds from cryptocurrency users. For example, the Ethereum Foundation’s email account was recently hacked and used for a phishing attack, but there were no casualties. A more successful recent hacking attack was the hacking of the crypto exchange WazirX, which resulted in the theft of about $235 million worth of digital assets.