ETH Exploit Sends NORMIE Down 98%, Hacker to Return Funds?

Is the NORMIE hacker ethically bound to return the stolen funds if the dev team grants their conditions?

Man frustrated with ETH and NORMIE being in the red.
Created by Kornelija Poderskytė from DailyCoin
  • Base Layer-1 meme coin NORMIE gets struck with a $40M flash loan hack.
  • The exploiter demands to “reimburse NORMIE holders” with a fair launch.
  • NORMIE’s dev team responds as the coin’s market cap restores $2.6M.

Newly-emerged meme coin Normie (NORMIE) witnessed a turbulent start due to a flash loan hack that sucked up most of the meme coin’s liquidity. The Base chain-based meme currency rapidly crashed from a $41.99 million market cap to below $1 million in the early hours of May 26, 2024.

Sponsored

While it took three hours for the hacker to drain Normie’s liquidity from $41.99M to just $987,432, some major players witnessed a devastating deficit in their portfolios. In a case study by blockchain detectives LookOnChain, one Ethereum (ETH) whale spent $1.16M to acquire 11.23M Normie (NORMIE) tokens for an average price of $0.1035 in a two-week buying spree.

According to further research by DailyCoin, NORMIE in this major crypto player’s portfolio is now worth just $14,985.45, continuing to hold the 11.23M NORMIE without panic selling. 

NORMIE Dev Team to Strike A Deal with Hacker?

Hours into the NORMIE hack, the exploiter sent a message to the Normie Deployer, demanding that the funds in question be used to “fairly launch a new token that is used to reimburse NORMIE holders.” The white-hat cyber-criminal offered to return 90% of the siphoned ETH funds, given that Normie’s deployer uses the 600 Ether for the suggested re-launch.

While the NORMIE developer team agreed to the conditions, the meme coin is already listed by several major crypto exchanges, including HTX, BitMart, and LBank. “We will have to re-launch, yes,” affirmed the dev, adding that the team is expecting to get their Twitter account back first, as well as the return of over $40 million in Ethereum.

Cryptocurrency aficionados on X are discussing how the relaunch would work in practice. Some suggest a new token contract with a built-in function that triggers Liquidity Pool deployment on UniSwap, waiting for the hacker to send 90% of the drained ETH.

As of press time, Normie trades at $0.00132 with a trading volume of $3.75 million over the past 24 hours. At a market cap of $1,362,347, NORMIE is now 99.4% down from its all-time peak at $0.2191, hit on March 25, 2024, during Spring’s meme coin rally.

On the Flipside

  • The hacker’s conditions could conflict with the NORMIE dev team’s pledge to re-launch the token after retrieving the $40 million in Ethereum (ETH).
  • The proposed deal asserts that the token will be relaunched fairly before any drained funds are sent back to NORMIE’s developer team.

Why This Matters

Around 72,000 cryptocurrency investors were affected by this smart contract vulnerability, causing massive losses in their crypto portfolios.

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This article is for information purposes only and should not be considered trading or investment advice. Nothing herein shall be construed as financial, legal, or tax advice. Trading forex, cryptocurrencies, and CFDs pose a considerable risk of loss.

Author
Tadas Klimasevskis

Tadas Klimaševskis is a DailyCoin Journalist, covering memecoins & latest developments. Tadas has moderate holdings in SHIB, HBAR, LTC, MATIC and a selection of low-cap meme currencies.

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