Post-mortem of claim issues at launch time yesterday:
tl;dr: An attacker intentionally DOS’d @TokensoftInc’s API to take down the claim database and UI. While this was happening, 274,956 NEXT from 253 previously compromised wallets (unrelated to Connext) were claimed and sold…
— Connext (@ConnextNetwork) September 6, 2023
Connext Network, a cross-chain interoperability protocol, is attracting attention after the community discovered a cryptocurrency wallet that appeared to have attacked Sybil to profit from the protocol’s airdrop.
Specifically, address 0x44Af had just received a large number of NEXT tokens through 230 different wallets, then quickly sold them into ETH, USDT, and USDC, raising nearly 39,000 USD. It is worth noting that this crypto wallet was created just 4 hours before the NEXT token distribution started.
After further investigation of on-chain data, the platform found that the majority of addresses did not appear to have transaction patterns indicative of Sybil’s activity. Instead, the wallets in question appear to have been compromised previously (not related to the platform).
But Connext is not compromised in any way. After the DOS attack ended, the airdrop application was back to normal. As of press time, over 20,000 users have requested 28,884,594 NEXT across 4 chains.
According to the report, although there was some concern in the community that this was an abuse of airdrop contracts, we were quick to rule out the possibility.
Once the DoS activity ended and the claiming portal was back online, users were able to quickly and seamlessly claim their NEXT to any of our supported chains, gas-free!
Over 23,000 wallets claimed 28,884,594 NEXT across 4 chains — marking a historical first for crosschain… pic.twitter.com/WddkFA2ehg
— Connext (@ConnextNetwork) September 6, 2023
A Sybil attack in this case is a person or organization that creates hundreds or thousands of wallets and airdrops to make big profits. The purpose of this is to create a link between the wallets, thereby fooling the anti-Sybil system that all the wallets belong to an individual or organization. This will make it impossible for hacked wallets to receive the airdrop.
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