Hack history / 2018 / Hack or exploit
SpankChain
Hack or exploit on Oct 7, 2018 · Reentrancy
ATTACK TX CONFIRMED ON CHAINSOURCES AGREE ON DATE AND LOSS · 3 SOURCES
Lost
$38K
dollars at the time
Returned
none listed
as the sources state it
Rank
#1,984
among thefts by dollars lost
What happened
SpankChain payment channel hub was exploited via a reentrancy vulnerability on October 6, 2018. An attacker created a malicious token contract masquerading as an ERC20, with a transfer function that called back into the payment channel contract multiple times, draining approximately 165.38 ETH (~$38,000). The attacker returned the stolen funds after negotiation.
Details
- Date
- Oct 7, 2018
- Kind
- Hack or exploit
- Method
- Reentrancy
- How in
- Smart contract bug
- Target
- DeFi protocol
- Chains
- Ethereum
After the theft
- Returned by the attacker
- yes, amount not stated
“The attacker returned the stolen funds after negotiation.” (DefiLlama)
Reported by
Cite this page
SwanBluechip, "SpankChain hack, Oct 7, 2018: $38K lost", Crypto hack history, https://swan-hack-tracker.pages.dev/history/i/ht0af0d1763a/ (data as of 2026-11-01).