Synapse Protocol
Hack or exploit on Nov 6, 2021 · Price Manipulation
What happened
The asset cross-chain bridge launched by the cross-chain protocol Synapse Protocol is suspected to have loopholes, and the attacker manipulated the virtual price of nUSD Metapool, reducing it by about 12.5%. Ultimately, although the funds were withdrawn from the metapool itself, the funds were not lost. When the validator is offline, the address that took the funds from the LP tries to move the funds through the bridge, so the transaction has not yet been processed. However, the validators unanimously decided not to process this transaction because it was malicious to the LP and the entire network: as a result, ~$8.2 million in nUSD was not minted to the attacker's address on the target chain. The nUSD will be returned to the affected Avalanche LPs instead.
Details
- Date
- Nov 6, 2021
- Kind
- Hack or exploit
- Method
- Price Manipulation
- How in
- Bridge and cross-chain
- Target
- Bridge
- Chains
- not stated
Reported by
SwanBluechip, "Synapse Protocol hack, Nov 6, 2021: undisclosed lost", Crypto hack history, https://swan-hack-tracker.pages.dev/history/i/ht71018ffa1b/ (data as of 2026-10-31).