Yet another decentralized lending and algorithmic stablecoin protocol was hacked yesterday, with $3.5 million stolen from its treasury via what appears for now to be a one-off exploit. As a result, Nirvana Finance’s NIRV stablecoin lost its peg — it’s at 15 cents as of this writing, and the ANA token used to maintain it is down 80%. ANA was also used to provide collateral for NIRV loans. If that sounds familiar, that’s because another decentralized finance (DeFi) algorithmic stablecoin, terraUSD, and its LUNA partner coin failed on a spectacular scale in May, costing investors $48 billion. But that’s where the similarity ends. TerraUST died in loss-of-confidence based run, while ANA/NIRV was hacked and tricked it into releasing the entire $3.5 million worth of Tether’s USDT stablecoins in its treasury wallet, CoinDesk reported on Wednesday (July 27). DeFi hacks are becoming more frequent, with the amount lost — $4 billion — now surpassing the $3.2 billion lost to centralized cryptocurrency exchange hacks, according to blockchain analytics firm Crystal Blockchain. That’s significant when you consider that the data on centralized hacks goes all the way back to 2011, while the DeFi data only dates back to 2020 — and that, really, DeFi barely existed before 2021.
Full story : Hackers Force a $4B Question: Can DeFi Ever Be Safe?
