Yield-generating stablecoin project Origin Dollar exploited for $7M

Origin Protocol has announced its yield-generating stablecoin protocol, OUSD, has been hacked and drained of at least $7 million.

Origin Dollar (OUSD), the yield-generating stable token launched by Origin Protocol in late September, has been hacked to the tune of $7 million.

On Nov. 17, Origin Protocol founder Matthew Liu announced the stablecoin had been hacked, noting that $1 million of the $7 million in lost funds, which included Dai and Ether (ETH), had been deposited by Origin’s founders, employees and the company itself.

The team currently does not know the exact nature of how the exploit was carried out, however they noted a flash-loan transaction that appears to be “the root of the attack.” The transaction cost nearly 0.54 Ether to complete.

“The team is all-hands on deck attempting to figure out what vulnerability was exploited and how the hacker was able to access users’ deposits. Expect an updated post within an hour.”

In response to the attack, deposits to the OUSD vault have been disabled, and traders have been advised not to purchase the token:

”Please do not buy OUSD on Uniswap or Sushiswap as the current prices do not reflect OUSD’s underlying assets. This is a quickly moving process, and our entire team has been mobilized to tackle the crisis.”

Leu added that the team has no intention of “going away,” emphasizing that the events do not comprise “a rug pull or internal scam.”

According to CoinGecko, OUSD is currently trading for less than $0.10 on Uniswap.

According to crypto venture firm Hex Capital’s Nick Chong, the hacker is currently washing the stolen funds using Bitcoin tokenization protocol RenBTC.

Chong also noted Origin’s breach is the fifth major flash-loan attack to hit DeFi in the past three weeks, following attacks targeting Harvest, Akropolis, Value and CheeseBank.