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Which DeFi exploit drained staked ETH?

Published 350 words 2 min read

TLDR

It was the Yearn Finance (YFI) yETH stableswap infinite?mint exploit that minted fake yETH and drained ETH and liquid staked ETH from liquidity pools.

  1. About $9 million was lost, and Yearn said V2/V3 vaults were not affected in an incident update on X (Yearn post).
  2. The attacker minted roughly 235 trillion yETH, then pulled ETH and LSTs, sending about 1,000 ETH through Tornado Cash (Crypto.news report).
  3. A portion was recovered, including 857.49 pxETH worth around $2.4 million, per a post?mortem update (Defiant coverage).

Deep Dive

1. What Happened

The exploit hit Yearns yETH stableswap pool via an infinite?mint bug that allowed the attacker to create massive yETH and swap it for real assets. Coverage notes the pool aggregated staked ETH derivatives such as stETH and rETH, and the attacker drained value from that custom pool (CryptoPotato analysis).

What this means

The weakness sat in a custom stableswap design for LSTs, so the attacker could print synthetic yETH and redeem it against real ETH?backed liquidity.

2. Scope and Impact

Yearn said roughly $9 million was taken across the main yETH stableswap pool and a smaller yETH?WETH pool, while core V2/V3 vaults were unaffected (Yearn post). Reports also highlight about 1,000 ETH routed through Tornado Cash shortly after the attack (Yahoo summary).

What this means

Direct losses concentrated in the yETH LST pools. Broader Yearn vault strategies remained intact, limiting contagion risk to other Yearn products.

3. Aftermath and Recovery

Follow?ups describe a coordinated response and partial recovery of 857.49 pxETH, about $2.4 million, alongside a war room with security partners and auditors (Defiant coverage). Additional detail on the exploit path and the initial laundering flows appears in incident roundups (Crypto.news report).

What this means

Some funds were clawed back, but users in affected pools still face losses. Expect governance and contract?level changes to harden stableswap math and invariants.

Conclusion

The staked ETH drain youre referring to stems from the Yearn yETH infinite?mint exploit, which targeted a custom LST stableswap pool and siphoned real ETH and LST liquidity. Losses were significant but contained to that product, with partial recovery reported and core Yearn vaults unaffected per the official update.

Educational information only. Crypto markets are volatile and this is not financial advice.


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