Uniswap, Curve Daily Trading Volumes Surges Past $2B, Likely Driven by Harvest Attack

Daily trading volume on Uniswap surged by over 1,200% to a record $2.04 billion, surpassing the previous record high of $953.59 million registered on Sept. 1 by a big margin.

AccessTimeIconOct 26, 2020 at 2:03 p.m. UTC
Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 10:23 a.m. UTC
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Automated market makers Curve and Uniswap traded volumes above $2 billion on Monday, benefiting from one of decentralized finance protocol Harvest Finance's darkest days.

  • Daily trading volume on Uniswap surged by over 1,200% to a record $2.04 billion, surpassing the previous record high of $953.59 million registered on Sept. 1 by a big margin.
Uniswap volume
Uniswap volume
  • "Volume on Uniswap surged, as the Harvest Finance exploiter likely ran money through the automated market maker," Denis Vinokourov, head of the research at the London-based prime brokerage Bequant, told CoinDesk in a Telegram chat.
  • Daily trading volume on decentralized exchange Curve Finance also surged to over $2 billion.
  • A malicious entity exploited Harvest Finance early Monday and drained $24 million from the yield farming protocol launched in early September.
Harvest Finance attack
Harvest Finance attack
  • "The economic attack was performed through the curve y pool, stretching the price of the stablecoins on Curve out of proportion and depositing and withdrawing a large amount of assets through harvest," Harvest Finance said.
  • The attacker took a flash loan to manipulate prices on Curve Y Pool to drain USDT and USDC many times. The entity then converted the funds to tokenized bitcoin in form of renBTC and exited to bitcoin.
  • The anonymous team behind Harvest Finance has announced a $100,000 bounty for the first person or group to reach out to the hacker "and help the attacker return the funds to the deployer address."
  • The Harvest Finance team is actively tracking the funds and has identified 10 bitcoin addresses of the flash loan attacker.

Clarification (Oct. 26, 2020, 21:28 UTC): Harvest Finance's bounty includes the requirement that the individual not just find the "attacker" but also help them return the funds to the deployer address.

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