- Venus Protocol detected suspicious trading activity in its THE/Cake liquidity pool and paused related borrows and withdrawals.
- A supply cap attack involving the accumulation of 84% of Thena’s token market cap led to an estimated loss of over $3.7 million.
- The incident highlights persistent Cybersecurity threats in DeFi, even as overall hack losses declined in February.
- Monthly crypto losses from code exploits fell, but phishing and social engineering scams saw an uptick.
Venus Protocol announced on Sunday that it had detected suspicious trading activity within the liquidity pool for the Thena (THE) token, prompting an immediate precautionary response. The decentralized lending platform stated the unusual activity specifically affected pools involving the THE and Cake (CAKE) tokens.
Consequently, the team said it was “taking precautionary action by pausing all THE borrows and withdrawals effective immediately, to prevent any further misuse.” According to its risk manager, Allez Labs, the activity was a suspected supply cap attack executed in two phases.
The attacker steadily accumulated approximately 84% of THE’s total market cap. This accumulation was then used as collateral to borrow substantial amounts of other assets. According to Allez Labs, the exploiter borrowed 6.67 million CAKE, 1.58 million USDC, 2,801 BNB, and 20 Bitcoin.
According to Wu Blockchain, the total amount lost in the attack is now over $3.7 million. Meanwhile, data shows the THE token price fell more than 17% in the last 24 hours.
The incident underscores ongoing cybersecurity threats within the decentralized finance sector. However, the broader landscape of crypto losses saw a notable shift last month. According to PeckShield, losses from hacks fell to $49 million in February, the lowest in nearly a year.
Despite this reduction, there was an increase in phishing and social engineering scams targeting private users. A report from Nominis confirmed this trend. Consequently, the threat landscape continues to evolve as attackers pivot to different methods.
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