DeFi Project Meerkat Raises Eyebrows With Claimed $31M Hack a Day After Launch

There are signs the hack was in fact an exit scam, according to reports.

Mar 4, 2021 at 2:44 p.m. UTC

Updated Sep 14, 2021 at 12:21 p.m. UTC

Decentralized finance project Meerkat Finance has claimed it was drained of $31 million in crypto assets just one day after launching on the Binance Smart Chain.

The Meerkat Finance team announced via its Telegram channel around 9:00 UTC Thursday that its smart contract vault had been compromised, The Block reported.

The DeFi project was drained of 13.96 million BUSD and 73,653 BNB (both Binance tokens), adding up to over $31 million in total.

However, there are suspicions it may not be a simple case of a hack, as on-chain data points to the original Meerkat deployer's account being used to alter the smart contract, per the report. Unless the project's private key was compromised, this suggests it being carried out by Meerkat itself.

Backing up fears of an exit scam are the disappearance of Meerkat's website and Twitter profile.

"“The joint security team is monitoring the Meerkat Finance situation," a Binance spokesperson told CoinDesk, adding the company will update the community when it can.

"If the money flows into the exchange, it will be frozen as soon as possible. BSC is an open-source ecosystem and Binance is not directly connected to projects built on it,” the company said.

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