Optimism has been compromised for 20 million OP governance tokens after an attacker intercepted a grant meant for liquidity provider Wintermute.
The hacker deployed a multisig to the network with different initialization parameters in a Wintermute recovery operation and took control of 20 million OP tokens. The malicious actor went ahead and sold 1 million tokens.
The compromise happened when Wintermute provided a multi-signature address that was not yet on the Ethereum blockchain by mistake. Wintermute founder and CEO Evgeny Gaevoy said that the address was a Gnosis safe.
Wintermute has since bought the 1 million OP tokens with the intention to purchase more once the exploiter attempts to sell them.
Optimism foundation has sent a second grant of 20 million OP tokens to Wintermute as the probe into the matter continues.
Optimism foundation reportedly onboarded Wintermute to offer liquidity services to enhance users’ experience acquiring OP tokens. A temporary 20 million OP tokens were set aside for Wintermute from the Foundation’s Partner Fund.
OP tokens were launched at the end of May with the objectives nu Optimism about the decentralized governance of the blockchain. The launch was followed by an airdrop on May 31.
Source: Optimism Foundation