KyberSwap Cuts Workforce in Half Following $48.8M Exploit; Reimbursements Plan Underway
Summary:
The decentralized finance protocol KyberSwap, following a $48.8m exploit in November, has drastically reduced its workforce by half. Despite this, CEO Victor Tran confirmed that core operations remain robust. To curb spending, liquidity protocol projects and the KyberAI initiative have temporarily halted. The company is focusing on reimbursing affected customers following the exploit, aiming to distribute funds in February 2024. Additionally, a database will be set up to aid outgoing employees in finding new opportunities.
In an unfortunate event, the team propelling the decentralized finance protocol, KyberSwap, has been compelled to drastically reduce its workforce by 50% in order to sustain its business operations. This reduction follows the $48.8 million loophole discovered last November. Victor Tran, the CEO of Kyber Network, announced the upsetting decision to downsize staff on December 24th. He acknowledged the tremendous trials that the company has faced in recent weeks due to the Elastic exploit. However, he remained positive about the strength of KyberSwap's core operations, including the Aggregator and Limit Order features-which are still robust. Moreover, he shared their imminent launch of the Zap API.
In its efforts to assist the outgoing workforce, the DeFi company is setting up a "voluntary database" to provide opportunities in the Web3 domain.
In a bid to curb spending, the Kyber Network has momentarily ceased its liquidity protocol projects and the KyberAI initiative, according to Tran. Despite this, he affirmed that the heart of the business remains healthy, including the core functions of KyberSwap's Aggregator and Limit Order. Tran also shed light on the soon-to-be-launched Zap API, a novel development meant to position dApps, wallets and other projects as the easiest channels for users to access DeFi liquidity protocols. For the time being, the company is focused on reimbursing the affected customers from the November loophole.
As a measure to facilitate this process, Kyber Network has begun its Treasury Grants Program on December 20, targeting to distribute funds in U.S. dollar stablecoins from February 1, 2024. Affected users will need to apply for reimbursement between January 11 and January 23, 2024.
A reference value close to $49 million has been determined for beneficiaries from the main KyberSwap loophole where users will receive 60% of this value. Following this primary exploit, an additional $6.6 million was stolen by front-run bots. Despite the Kyber team's attempt to negotiate a bounty deal with the offender who demanded full control over the company, including all Kyber assets and governance mechanics, an agreement could not be reached.
Doug Colkitt, a DeFi expert, broke down the November 22nd attack as an "infinite money glitch," a carefully crafted exploit across multiple networks that implement KyberSwap pools. Resources from Avalanche, Polygon, Ethereum and Layer-2 networks Arbitrum, Optimism and Base were compromised as a result. KyberSwap operates on the Kyber Network, a blockchain-based liquidity center that brings together liquidity from multiple blockchains, enabling token exchanges without any middlemen.
Published At
12/27/2023 3:09:26 AM
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