Synthetix , an Ethereum-based synthetic asset issuance platform has lost over 37 million synthetic ETH (sETH) in an oracle attack.
While the amount of sETH in question is known to be over 37 million, the price of this loss in U.S. dollars is reportedly unknown.
Synthetix allows users to mint and trade synthetic currencies peer-to-peer (P2P) on the Ethereum blockchain. An example of such synthetic currency is the token sETH, which apparently tracks the price of Ether using an oracle-backed price feed.
Synthetix CEO Kain Warwick said in the official Discord channel for Synthetix:
“There has been an incident with the price feed of sKRW, we are currently investigating the root cause, but during the time when the price feed was returning the wrong value we believe an automated arb bot converted into sKRW and then into sETH.”
Warwick reportedly believes the ‘attack’ was performed automatically by an arbitrage bot and is seeking to contact the bot owner to correct the problem.
Synthetix has reportedly put a hold on all transactions for now. This it can apparently do as it has total control over its smart contracts. Warwick has also issued a bug bounty to solve and prevent this issue from occurring in the future.