This is the second time in six months that Cream Finance has been targeted.
The DeFi platform Cream Finance has fallen victim to yet another devastating attack, with cryptocurrencies worth more than $25 million stolen in a flash loan exploit.
On Twitter, the protocol confirmed that 418,311,571 AMP and 1,308 ETH were taken — however, it stressed no other markets were affected.
This is the second time in six months that Cream Finance has been targeted. Back in February, reports suggested that more than 13,000 ETH was taken in an equally audacious attack. At the time, that crypto haul would have been worth approximately $24 million.
Data from CoinMarketCap shows that the value of CREAM, the protocol’s native token, has fallen by 5.5% in the past 24 hours. Trading volumes have also surged by 45% over the same period as investors digest the news.
CREAM had suffered an even more violent decline after February’s exploit, with the token’s price plummeting by 30% in a matter of minutes.
Interestingly, the cryptocurrency that appears to have been most affected by the latest news is AMP, which is down 8% at the time of writing. Trading volumes here have risen by an eye-watering 624% in the space of just 24 hours.
What’s Happened?
Flash loans involve borrowing funds and returning them in the same transaction — and they have become a common source for exploits in recent months.
Data released by blockchain intelligence firms indicates that DeFi hacks are increasingly becoming the method of choice for crypto criminals.
According to CipherTrace, $474 million was lost through such exploits in the decentralized finance sector between January and July of this year — eclipsing the total figure for 2020 in the space of seven short months.
It didn’t take long for this grim figure to get even worse. Barely a day later, more than $600 million in cryptocurrencies was stolen from Poly Network across three different blockchains.
All of these funds were later returned, indicating that the attack was orchestrated by a so-called “white hat” hacker. Nonetheless, such incidents expose the staggering security loopholes that can exist in even the most established DeFi protocols — undermining investor confidence and prompting users to look elsewhere.
