Avalanche-based SocialFi platform Stars Arena became the target of an exploit that could have potentially drained $1 million from its smart contract. However, the project fixed the error and claimed that it was a coordinated fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD) attack on the platform.
Friend.tech took the market by storm, showing rapid growth and community interest. While many believed that Avalanche’s answer to Friend.tech would revive the layer-1 protocol, it suffered an attack days after its launch.
How Bad Actors Tried to Exploit Stars Arena
An X (Twitter) user, @0xlilitch, first shed light while Stars Arena was attacked. The user wrote:
“1.1 million dollars are being drained right now because of noob devs who couldn’t make a copy of Friend.tech that will work properly.”
@0xlilitch later explained that the hackers could sell 0 shares and get free Avalanche (AVAX) tokens. The X user elaborated:
“THEIR getPrice() FUNCTION IS BROKEN
You can sell 0 shares and get AVAX. Yep. You can do this right now and it will work.”
Community Backlash Over The Underdog Narrative Post
Later, the team updated that they had fixed the issue. As of writing, the Total Value Locked (TVL) has fallen from around $1 million to $915,590. This indicates that the exploiters were not successful in draining significant funds from the smart contract.
However, according to the community, Stars Arena’s X post had that underdog narrative, shifting the blame on monopoly. The X post mentions:
“We’re being targeted by malicious actors in the space that want to steal your money.
The little guy is under attack.
You are under attack.
Your right to platform diversity is under attack.
Don’t get it wrong, this is coordinated FUD.
The malicious actors were trying to spend $5 to drain $1 in TVL from our platform.
Make note of that, they were throwing money away to TAKE YOUR MONEY.
They don’t want diversity.
They want only monopoly.”
Community members and developers believe that Stars Arena is a forked version of the popular SocialFi platform – Friend.tech. The renowned developer “foobar” lashed out at the platform. He wrote:
“you took a fully functional base contract and somehow added new attack vectors in your unverified fork. delete your account and product, clownshow”
Read more: What is Friend.Tech? A Deep Dive Into The Web3 Social Media App
Another community member sarcastically wrote:
This tweet is actually much more bearish than the “exploit”
Stars Arena, which went live last week, rapidly grabbed the community’s attention. Its TVL soared from around $33,000 to over $1 million from September 27 to October 5. Some believed that the project could revive the Avalanche ecosystem. But the exploit has left the community concerned.
Meanwhile, its rival Friend.tech is plagued with phishing and SIM swap scams. Some have questioned the platform’s sustainability, calling it a pyramid scheme.
Read more: Crypto Social Media Scams: How to Stay Safe
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