Yearn Finance Foray into Gaming Multiverse Results in $15 Million Contract Hack

Yearn Finance founder Andre Cronje has been busy conjuring up new concepts to bring DeFi to the masses, and his latest brainchild is an ecosystem called Eminence, which targets the gaming world.

Gaming tokens and economies have been tried before with the likes of Enjin Coin (EJN) and a couple of others. The latest non-fungible token (NFT) craze has also brought gaming back into the frame as they can be used to buy and sell items and collectibles for use in-game.

Smart Contracts Depleted on Day One

In a tweet posted today, Cronje gave little away but stated that they had finished the concept behind the new gaming multiverse economy. He added that the smart contracts had been deployed on Ethereum, but the system is still three weeks away.

1/x First, the data;

1. Yesterday we finished the concept behind our new economy for a gaming multiverse. Eminence. As per my usual methodology, I deployed our staging contracts on ETH so we can continue developing on it.

2. Eminence is at least ~3+ weeks still away

— Andre Cronje (@AndreCronjeTech) September 29, 2020

Within hours of those contracts being deployed, they had already been exploited. The NFT focused Eminence platform had attracted around $15 million from FOMO fueled ‘degens’ (degenerate farmers) piling into the untested and unverified EMN protocol.

When Cronje was woken a few hours later, he discovered that the contracts had been exploited for the full $15 million, and the hacker bizarrely sent $8 million back into his Yearn deployer account. Cronje stated that he would refund the $8 million following several threats;

“As I am receiving a fair amount of threats, I have asked yearn treasury to assist with refunding the 8m the hacker sent… Funds will be returned to holders pre-hack snapshot.”

He added that using the multi-signature wallet is safer, and he felt more comfortable with them having the funds. Cronje also stated that the contracts he deployed yesterday were purely for himself to engage with, and both GIL and EMN are staging and will not be used.

Speaking on the matter was Pen, COO of LID Protocol, who told CryptoPotato: “What happened with Eminence is a reminder that the DeFi space is a wild landscape. Nobody is above making mistakes, publicly or anonymously. Defi is a risky gamble putting your trust in people.”

Eminence Still Being Developed

His latest tweet stated that he was still intent on developing Eminence and is still deploying contracts but advised waiting for an official announcement as half of them may still have vulnerabilities.

I am still building @eminencefi. I love the metaverse and metaconomy.

I am also going to continue deploying test contracts. I have over ~100 deployed contracts, of which probably >half have vulnerabilities.

Please wait for official announcements.

— Andre Cronje (@AndreCronjeTech) September 29, 2020

The Yearn Finance native token YFI dumped 10% as the news broke and has fallen to $26,300, according to Coingecko. Since its all-time high on September 13, YFI has lost 40%.

What can be learned from the Eminence incident in regards to picking projects?

“When you’re looking to invest in a project, look into who’s backing them or possibly who they’re launching through.” according to Pen. “If a project uses a rug pull protection solution, the liquidity is guaranteed to be locked. Check to see if their contract has been audited. These types of safeguards can mean the difference between losing your capital or not.”