Normie Team Reaches 90% Fund Return Agreement After $41.7M Market Cap Plummet
By Hassan Shittu
Updated on June 5, 2024, 03:57 EDT
In a shocking turn of events, the price of $NORMIE experienced a 100% plunge due to a smart contract exploit. However, the Normie memecoin team has managed to negotiate with the accused hacker, resulting in a potential recovery of 90% of the stolen funds. This negotiation caused a significant drop in the market cap, amounting to $41.7 million, within a span of just three hours.
The hacker, who was responsible for the exploit, has offered to return 90% of the stolen Ether. As a result, the team has decided to launch a new token to refund the affected holders. Surprisingly, the NORMIE team has reportedly accepted the hacker’s offer of ‘no reprisals’ and reimbursement for the token holders.
Flash Loan Attack Hits NORMIE, Team Seeks Return of Stolen Funds
On May 26, the $NORMIE memecoin project on the Base blockchain fell victim to a flash loan attack. This attack exploited a vulnerability in the contract tax mechanism of the project. The flaw allowed the attacker to borrow a significant amount of cryptocurrency without providing collateral. The attacker then manipulated the token supply and repaid the loan in the same transaction.
The exploit took advantage of the instantaneous nature of blockchain transactions, resulting in a sudden surge in NORMIE’s token supply. Consequently, the token’s price plummeted by over 99%, reducing its market value from $40 million to less than $200,000.
Exploiter Requirements Sent to Normie’s Team Source: Base Explorer
Earlier today, the Normie project team announced that the hacker had reached out to them and agreed to return 90% of the stolen funds. Despite this positive development, NORMIE’s price had already dropped by 96% following the exploit. The exploit and the hacker’s offer were discovered by blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain through an on-chain message sent to Normie’s deployer address.
To recover the funds, the Normie team accepted the hacker’s terms, which involved using the recovered assets and $2.3 million from their development wallet to launch a new token for compensating NORMIE holders. In an official statement, the team addressed the hacker, expressing their willingness to move forward with the agreed-upon terms.
After making this announcement, the team’s primary account on X (formerly Twitter) was suspended. Undeterred, the team established a new account on X to communicate with their followers. They assured the community that a relaunch was planned once they regained access to their main account and secured the returned funds. Unfortunately, this temporary account was also suspended shortly thereafter.
The hacker reiterated their conditions, emphasizing that the token relaunch must occur before the funds are returned.
NORMIE Holders Express Concerns Amid Project’s Post-Hack Silence
Many cryptocurrency users on X (formerly Twitter) have expressed concerns about the silence from the NORMIE team following the suspension of their X handles. One user reported that the team had blocked messages on Telegram and provided very little information about their plans. Speculations have arisen, with some users suggesting that the hack could have been an insider job.
NORMIE was launched during a surge in memecoin popularity on the Base blockchain in March 2024. The token reached its peak market cap of $130 million on April 2, according to CoinGecko. However, the token’s price experienced a significant decline at 3:55 am UTC on May 26, plunging over 92% within an hour to $0.0032.
The price continued its downward trend, dropping by 99.5% within two and a half hours. There was a brief spike to $0.019 before the price fell further to $0.0016 at the time of writing, resulting in a 96% fall. While the market cap initially fell from $41.9 million to a low of $200,000, it has slightly recovered since then.
According to the on-chain scam detection tool Quick Intel, approximately 72,000 NORMIE holders were affected by the exploit. However, the exact extent of the losses suffered by the token holders has yet to be confirmed by the NORMIE team.
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