BNB Chain Exploiter Loses $63M on Venus Protocol to Liquidation Amid Market Crash

A crypto wallet connected to the October 2022 BNB Chain $600 million exploit has lost roughly $63 million on the decentralized lending platform Venus Protocol due to liquidation that resulted from the massive bloodbath in the market yesterday.

According to a series of tweets by blockchain security firm PeckShield, the exploiter’s wallet was first liquidated of 1.1 million Venus BNB (vBNB) worth around $9.9 million with the asset’s price as $9.4. The second liquidation was approximately 5.6 million vBNB worth $52.3 million.

BNB Chain Hacker’s Loan Position Liquidated

During the 2022 BNB Chain hack, the attacker minted two million BNB tokens, using 900,000 to borrow roughly $150 million worth of Tether (USDT) and USD Coin (USDC) against Venus. As BNB’s price continued to decline over the past few months, the loan’s health rate deteriorated and raised concerns about cascading effects of the BNB Chain upon liquidation.

To contain the situation, BNB Chain and Venus passed a proposal in November that authorized only the core team to liquidate the exploiter’s position. To that effect, the duo whitelisted a wallet, exclusively permitting it to implement the liquidation in a manner that would prevent a shortfall on Venus and provide additional support during the process.

In June, the wallet was funded with $30 million in USDT in preparation for the liquidation as BNB continued to plummet amid legal issues between the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and crypto exchange Binance.

As soon as BNB tumbled below $220 alongside other cryptocurrencies, the collateral positions linked to the hacker’s wallet got liquidated, and the 900,000 BNB was sent to Venus. The assets were worth around $196.2 million at writing time, with BNB trading at $218 per CoinMarketCap.

No Resulting Shortfall on Venus

The mass liquidation was contained by the proposal passed by Venus and BNB Chain after the hack last year. There was no shortfall on Venus or cascading effects on BNB or the broader market.

“Following today’s market movement, the BNB Bridge exploiter account was made healthy as promised by @BNBCHAIN using whitelisted liquidation without any resulting shortfall or further impact to $bnb,” the Venus team said.