In a strange twist, what was supposed to be a regular airdrop by the cross-chain wormhole protocol turned out to be an exploiter who was inadvertently behind the theft of $1 million worth of Ethereum from the protocol nearly two years ago. As a result, chaos ensued.
The airdrop, which started on April 3rd, aimed to distribute W tokens to eligible participants. But things quickly turned sour as fraudsters arrived on the scene, flooding official channels with phishing messages and exploiting vulnerabilities in the accounts of key figures, including Wormhole co-founder Robinson Varkey. became.
Hackers likely began spreading malicious links using compromised accounts, prompting security-conscious users and platforms to act quickly.
The aftermath of the airdrop also saw the emergence of meme tokens inspired by the disruption, and the value of the parody coin “Wormhole” experienced an unprecedented surge, leaving many observers perplexed.
Remarkably, in the midst of this frenzy, a glaring oversight became apparent. It contained addresses associated with a $323 million protocol hack that occurred in February 2022. Detective using the pseudonym “Prando” I got it. The Wormhole team claimed that they “forgot to exclude the exploiter from the airdrop” and showed a screenshot of the hacker's address.
In a separate tweet, NFT-focused news platform DEGEN NEWS said the Wormhole team mistakenly qualified four hacker addresses associated with the 2022 exploit for an airdrop, amounting to just over $50,000 worth of $31,642. I reported that I may have earned a W. However, with quick action to rectify the situation, these accounts have since erased From the list of eligible recipients by the Wormhole Team.
However, after the airdrop, the W token soared to an initial high of $1.5 as it was distributed and subsequently listed on exchanges, but this excitement did not last long as its value plummeted by an astounding 16.12%. , it has settled at $1.12 at the time of writing this article. According to CoinMarketCap data. Despite the setbacks, the token's market capitalization soared past $2 billion and daily trading volume exceeded $1.7 billion, highlighting the project's resilience amidst the turmoil.
The timing of this mishap is especially poignant given Wormhole's recent successes, including a major funding round in November 2023 that valued the startup at $2.5 billion. Furthermore, following its spin-off from trading company Jump Trading, its transition to an independent entity was a pivotal moment in Wormhole's journey toward greater autonomy and visibility in the industry.
