If someone used a $750 million flaw on three crypto Ethereum layer 2 networks, Jay Freeman was able to stop them from doing so.
He spoke about Unbridled Optimism, a flaw in the basic code of Optimism, Boba, and Metis, at ETHDenver this weekend. This was a discovery worth about a billion dollars.
Freeman has a background of software creation and hacking, most notably in the development of jailbreaking software for iOS. His knowledge of the open-source crypto business has proven invaluable. Last week’s hack cost $350 million to repair. Bridge flaws, on the other hand, are easy to find, he says.
Freeman found a big problem with Optimism’s virtual machine in early February. Engineers may not have been able to fix it as quickly as they should have. There were problems with the self-destruct function in Optimism. This function kills contracts and sends any ether that is left to a certain address.
It looks like it could be dangerous, and do blockchains have a self-destruct feature? The function removes old or harmful contracts from the chain and returns the balance of ether to the chain. Except for a flaw.
Because it didn’t burn the ether, it sent the balance back to the address. Attackers could double their OETH balance until Optimism developers found and fixed a bug.
Freeman found out about the problem by following one wallet to an employee of Ethers. As a result, the employee didn’t pay attention to the situation. Optimism’s code has been used by other layer 2 systems to make their own. Layer 2s are connected to each other, but they’re not the same thing as each other.
If Freeman hadn’t found the problem, someone could have doubled their money every time Boba or Metis died.
About White Hats and DeFi
Even though the sequencer turned off layer 2 DeFi, an attacker could still mess with layer 2 DeFi. Anyone could take over decentralized exchanges and get money from lending platforms with fake OETH.
Users on layer 2 of the Ethereum network may have lost all of their money because of a flaw. This would have made the bridge worthless, so it would not have worked. About $750 million was in the bank when the problem was found.
Friendly Rivalries are Vital
Unknown founders, open-source code, and billions of dollars gladly invested by investors make up DeFi. As a result, teams who manufacture quickly and distribute tokens win.
They don’t find caution and professionalism as exciting as other people do. If you take shortcuts, the market will eventually punish you for it. The world economy has seen this happen over and over again. Risk-taking is bad for the whole world. In crypto and decentralized finance, the same thing could happen, with only the most careful protocols making it through.
Friendly adversarialism can help people in an ecosystem be more open, honest, and even skeptical about new ideas.
Everyone talks about how negative you have to be to be a good person. They are excited about protocols that might never work or even be dangerous now. People are excited about this. Because open-source code is so easy to get, hackers and scammers can easily get in. Many people in the crypto world don’t seem to be ready to talk about this.
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