Stabble's TVL Crashes 62% After North Korean Hacker Alert
On-chain sleuth ZachXBT identified Keisuke Watanabe as an alleged North Korean hacker who reportedly worked as Stabble's CTO. Stabble's team issued an emergency warning on X, triggering a 62% TVL collapse.
Key Takeaway
A single hacker identification triggered a ₱66.25 million ($1.1 million) exodus from Stabble in hours.
On-chain sleuth ZachXBT identified Keisuke Watanabe as an alleged North Korean hacker who reportedly worked as Stabble's CTO last year. Stabble's team posted an emergency warning on X at 9:34 a.m. ET Tuesday, telling users to pull their liquidity immediately. The Solana decentralized exchange's total value locked crashed from ₱105.4 million ($1.75 million) to less than $663,000 following the alert.
The warning came less than a week after North Korean-linked hackers exploited ₱17.17 billion ($285 million) from Drift Protocol, a leading Solana DeFi platform. North Korean hackers allegedly used a six-month sophisticated scheme to infiltrate Drift. The same group reportedly stole ₱84.32 billion ($1.4 billion) from Bybit last year.
Stabble's team defended their blunt communication style in a follow-up statement. The protocol team said they received a message and acted on it, with their primary focus being the safety of liquidity providers. They added that they're quants and early DeFi degens, not PR people, and that user feedback matters.
Binance Chief Security Officer noted that North Korean individuals attempt to get hired at the exchange every day. The Solana Foundation launched new security efforts on Monday, including a program offering assistance to protocols with at least ₱602.29 million ($10 million) in TVL.
This article was written based on reporting from Decrypt.
