{"investigation":{"slug":"visor-finance","entity_name":"Visor Finance","trust_score":18,"severity_base":null,"score_modifier":0,"confidence":0.82,"status":"published","content_type":"investigation","summary":"Visor Finance was an Ethereum-based DeFi protocol offering active liquidity management for Uniswap v3 concentrated liquidity positions via smart-contract vaults called Hypervisors. The protocol suffered three separate security incidents in 2021 — an admin-key compromise in June ($500K), a price-manipulation attack in November (alleged $773K), and a critical reentrancy exploit in December that drained approximately $8.2M in VISR tokens from the vVISR staking contract. Following the December exploit, Visor merged with co-funded research arm Gamma Strategies in January 2022 and rebranded entirely, migrating token holders to the GAMMA token.","sections":[{"content":"Visor Finance launched in 2021 as a Uniswap v3 active liquidity management protocol on Ethereum. Its core abstraction was the Hypervisor, a smart contract that held Uniswap v3 LP positions and allowed automated or managed rebalancing of liquidity ranges on behalf of depositors. Users deposited assets into Hypervisors representing specific trading pairs and received LP shares in return; the protocol periodically rebalanced positions and auto-compounded fees. The native token VISR could be staked in a separate staking contract to receive a share of protocol revenue, with stakers receiving vVISR certificates representing their stake. In May 2021, Visor Finance funded an affiliated research organization called Gamma with an initial $500,000 to develop active LP strategies and financial modeling. The protocol integrated Chainlink Keepers for automated strategy execution and planned expansion to Arbitrum, Optimism, and Polygon.","heading":"Protocol Overview","sources":[{"url":"https://visorfinance.medium.com/how-does-visor-integrate-with-uniswap-v3-f8a648d343ad","name":"How Does Visor Integrate With Uniswap V3? — Visor Finance Medium","type":"official","credibility":2},{"url":"https://medium.com/visorfinance/introducing-gamma-an-organization-dedicated-to-funding-active-lp-strategies-and-research-bb6617168566","name":"Introducing Gamma — Visor Finance Medium","type":"official","credibility":2},{"url":"https://ethglobal.com/events/unicode/prizes/visor-finance","name":"Visor Finance — ETHGlobal Prize Page","type":"other","credibility":2}],"severity":"low"},{"content":"On June 19, 2021, Visor Finance disclosed that an attacker had obtained unauthorized access to an admin account controlling certain Hypervisor administrative functions. The attacker withdrew approximately $500,000 from deposits that had not yet been positioned into LP ranges, out of a total TVL of roughly $3 million at the time. The team stated that no smart contract vulnerability was exploited; rather, the failure stemmed from use of a non-multisig account for Hypervisor admin functions. Visor characterized the attacker as external and noted they appeared unaware of an emergency withdrawal safeguard, which limited losses to unpositioned assets. The protocol reimbursed affected users from its treasury. Following this incident, Visor committed to requiring multisig control for all admin operations.","heading":"Incident 1 — June 2021 Admin Key Compromise ($500K)","sources":[{"url":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/visor-finance-releases-500-000-051936013.html","name":"Visor Beta Incident Report — Visor Finance Medium (original post, now 410 Gone; cited via Yahoo Finance archive)","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://cryptonewsbtc.org/2021/06/21/visor-finance-releases-500000-defi-heist-post-mortem-report/","name":"Visor Finance Releases $500,000 DeFi Heist Post Mortem Report — CryptoNewsBTC","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://rekt.news/visor-finance-rekt","name":"Visor Finance — Rekt News","type":"news_article","credibility":2}],"severity":"high"},{"content":"On November 25, 2021 at approximately 13:18 UTC, an attacker executed an economic manipulation against Visor's OHM-ETH 1% Hypervisor. The exploit relied on Visor's then-reliance on Uniswap v3 spot prices for LP share issuance rather than time-weighted average prices (TWAP). Because the OHM-ETH pool had a steep liquidity gradient in a concentrated range, an attacker could manipulate the pool's spot price with a relatively modest capital outlay, causing Visor's contracts to issue mispriced shares. The Visor team publicly characterized the incident as \"Uniswap V3 arbitrage\" rather than an exploit and stated that user funds were secured and test hypervisors containing approximately $100K in team-controlled funds absorbed the bulk of losses. Independent analysis by Quadriga Initiative estimated losses at $773,000. The team deployed deposit proxy contracts to restrict public hypervisor deposits and announced a move toward TWAP-based share pricing. The protocol covered reported losses from its treasury.","heading":"Incident 2 — November 2021 Price Manipulation Attack (alleged $773K)","sources":[{"url":"https://quadrigainitiative.com/casestudy/visorfinancearbitrageattack.php","name":"Nov 2021 — Visor Finance Arbitrage Attack — Quadriga Initiative Case Study","type":"research","credibility":2},{"url":"https://medium.com/visorfinance/safeguarding-uniswap-v3-positions-against-arbitrage-274d9b5bbe3c","name":"Safeguarding Uniswap v3 Positions Against Arbitrage — Visor Finance Medium","type":"official","credibility":2},{"url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/8-2m-lost-visor-finance-suffers-latest-defi-hack/","name":"$8.2M Lost as Visor Finance Suffers Latest DeFi Hack — Crypto Briefing","type":"news_article","credibility":2}],"severity":"high"},{"content":"On December 21, 2021 at 14:29:11 UTC, a malicious smart contract drained Visor Finance's vVISR staking contract (RewardsHypervisor, deployed at 0xc9f27a50f82571c1c8423a42970613b8dbda14ef) of 8,812,958 VISR tokens, valued at approximately $8.2 million at the pre-exploit price of ~$0.93 per token. Security firm BEOSIN identified two compound vulnerabilities in the RewardsHypervisor's deposit() function. The primary vulnerability was that the contract performed external calls without restricting the target contract address, specifically through the IVisor delegateTransferERC20 interface, allowing an attacker's contract to take over execution flow. The secondary vulnerability was the absence of reentrancy protection on the deposit function. By exploiting both flaws together, the attacker's contract re-entered the deposit function mid-execution, causing the contract to issue two separate batches of 97,624,975 vVISR staking certificates for a total of 195,249,950 vVISR — double what a legitimate single deposit should have produced. The attacker then burned these certificates against the staking pool to redeem 8,812,958 VISR, swapped them on Uniswap v2 for approximately 243 ETH (~$978K), and laundered the proceeds through Tornado Cash across multiple transactions totaling at least 113 ETH. The attacker's wallet was 0x8efab89b497b887cdaa2fb08ff71e4b3827774b2 and the attack contract was 0x10c509aa9ab291c76c45414e7cdbd375e1d5ace8. The main exploit transaction hash was 0x69272d8c84d67d1da2f6425b339192fa472898dce936f24818fda415c1c1ff3f. The VISR token price collapsed from approximately $0.93 to $0.02 within hours — a decline exceeding 97% — and had fallen more than 99% from its all-time high of $4.11. Despite holding a CertiK audit (delivered July 12, 2021, which reported no critical or major findings) and an in-progress Quantstamp audit, the staking contract's reentrancy vulnerability was not caught prior to exploitation.","heading":"Incident 3 — December 2021 Reentrancy Exploit ($8.2M) — Critical","sources":[{"url":"https://rekt.news/visor-finance-rekt","name":"Visor Finance — Rekt News","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://beosin.medium.com/two-vulnerabilities-in-one-function-the-analysis-of-visor-finance-exploit-a15735e2492","name":"Two Vulnerabilities in One Function — BEOSIN Analysis (Medium)","type":"research","credibility":2},{"url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/8-2m-lost-visor-finance-suffers-latest-defi-hack/","name":"$8.2M Lost as Visor Finance Suffers Latest DeFi Hack — Crypto Briefing","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://beincrypto.com/visor-finance-hacked-for-8m-in-latest-defi-exploit/","name":"Visor Finance Hacked For $8M in Latest DeFi Exploit — BeInCrypto","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=2021-12-21-2","name":"Visor Finance is Hacked for About $8.2 Million — Web3 Is Going Great","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://www.certik.com/projects/visorfinance","name":"Visor Finance — CertiK Security Leaderboard","type":"research","credibility":2}],"severity":"critical"},{"content":"Visor Finance commissioned multiple security reviews during its operational period. CertiK completed an audit of the Hypervisor active liquidity management contracts, delivered July 12, 2021, finding 10 total issues: 2 medium severity, 4 informational/gas optimization, and 4 additional informational items — no critical or major findings were reported. Code4rena hosted a community audit contest for Visor Finance in May 2021. Despite these reviews, the vVISR staking contract (RewardsHypervisor) that was exploited in December 2021 was not protected against reentrancy, a well-known vulnerability class. At the time of the December exploit, a Quantstamp audit was reportedly in progress but had not yet completed. After the exploit, the team engaged both Quantstamp and ConsenSys Diligence for comprehensive audits of the surviving Hypervisor contracts, with targeted completion by end of January 2022. The gap between audit coverage and actual deployed contracts, combined with the protocol's repeated security failures across three distinct incident types in a single year, raises questions about the adequacy of the security review processes employed.","heading":"Audit History and Security Posture","sources":[{"url":"https://medium.com/visorfinance/hypervisor-audit-report-b5b3619c12da","name":"Hypervisor Audit Report — Visor Finance Medium","type":"research","credibility":2},{"url":"https://code4rena.com/reports/2021-05-visorfinance","name":"Visor Finance Findings and Analysis Report — Code4rena","type":"research","credibility":2},{"url":"https://skynet.certik.com/projects/visorfinance","name":"Visor Finance — CertiK Skynet Project Insight","type":"research","credibility":2},{"url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/8-2m-lost-visor-finance-suffers-latest-defi-hack/","name":"$8.2M Lost as Visor Finance Suffers Latest DeFi Hack — Crypto Briefing","type":"news_article","credibility":2}],"severity":"high"},{"content":"On December 23, 2021 — two days after the critical exploit — Visor Finance announced it would merge with Gamma Strategies, the research-focused organization it had funded since May 2021. The merger was announced as a restructuring under the Gamma brand, with the stated rationale of focusing on security and performance under a unified organization. Token migration proceeded rapidly: GAMMA tokens were minted and distributed within 24 hours to all holders of VISR, vVISR, and tVISR, using a pre-exploit snapshot from December 21. Liquidity was provided on Uniswap v3 for the GAMMA token at amounts reflecting the snapshot. All Visor web properties were transferred to Gamma, a new multisig was established, and treasury assets were migrated. The post-rebrand entity, Gamma Strategies, committed to deploying only contracts audited by Quantstamp and ConsenSys Diligence and announced integrations with Forta, Arbitrary Execution, and OpenZeppelin for improved operational security. Gamma Strategies continued active liquidity management operations and later experienced its own separate security incident in January 2023.","heading":"Rebrand to Gamma Strategies (January 2022)","sources":[{"url":"https://medium.com/gamma-strategies/visor-merges-with-gamma-a-re-org-focusing-on-security-and-performance-b4deaf67e273","name":"Visor Merges with Gamma — Gamma Strategies Medium","type":"official","credibility":2},{"url":"https://aliens.com/read/visor-finance-to-merge-with-gamma-strategies","name":"Visor Finance to Merge with Gamma Strategies — Aliens.com","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://rekt.news/gamma-strategies-rekt","name":"Gamma Strategies — Rekt News (covers post-rebrand 2023 incident)","type":"news_article","credibility":2},{"url":"https://indexcoop.substack.com/p/conversations-with-the-coop-core","name":"Conversations with the Coop — Gamma Strategies (formerly Visor Finance)","type":"other","credibility":2}],"severity":"medium"}],"timeline":[{"date":"2021-05","event":"Visor Finance launches active liquidity management beta on Uniswap v3.","source":"Visor Finance Medium","source_url":"https://medium.com/visorfinance/visors-active-liquidity-management-beta-launch-on-uniswap-v3-fbe5a5dce3c9","date_original":"2021-05-01"},{"date":"2021-05","event":"Visor Finance funds the creation of Gamma, an active LP research organization, with an initial $500,000.","source":"Visor Finance Medium","source_url":"https://medium.com/visorfinance/introducing-gamma-an-organization-dedicated-to-funding-active-lp-strategies-and-research-bb6617168566","date_original":"2021-05-01"},{"date":"2021-05","event":"Code4rena community audit contest for Visor Finance contracts completes.","source":"Code4rena","source_url":"https://code4rena.com/reports/2021-05-visorfinance","date_original":"2021-05-01"},{"date":"2021-06-19","event":"Admin key compromise results in $500K stolen from unpositioned Hypervisor deposits. Visor covers losses from treasury.","source":"Yahoo Finance / Visor Finance post-mortem","source_url":"https://finance.yahoo.com/news/visor-finance-releases-500-000-051936013.html"},{"date":"2021-07-12","event":"CertiK delivers Hypervisor audit report; no critical or major findings reported across 10 total findings.","source":"CertiK Security Leaderboard","source_url":"https://www.certik.com/projects/visorfinance"},{"date":"2021-11-25","event":"Price manipulation attack against OHM-ETH Hypervisor using Uniswap v3 spot price dependency. Visor characterizes it as arbitrage; independent estimates put losses at $773K. Treasury covers losses.","source":"Quadriga Initiative","source_url":"https://quadrigainitiative.com/casestudy/visorfinancearbitrageattack.php"},{"date":"2021-12-21","event":"Critical reentrancy exploit drains vVISR staking contract (RewardsHypervisor) of 8,812,958 VISR (~$8.2M). Attacker uses double-enter on deposit() to mint 195M vVISR certificates then redeems for underlying VISR. Funds laundered via Tornado Cash. VISR token price collapses over 97%.","source":"Rekt News / BEOSIN Analysis","source_url":"https://rekt.news/visor-finance-rekt"},{"date":"2021-12-23","event":"Visor Finance announces merger with Gamma Strategies, token migration to GAMMA using pre-exploit snapshot, and post-rebrand security commitments including Quantstamp and ConsenSys Diligence audits.","source":"Gamma Strategies Medium","source_url":"https://medium.com/gamma-strategies/visor-merges-with-gamma-a-re-org-focusing-on-security-and-performance-b4deaf67e273"},{"date":"2022","event":"Visor Finance fully merges into Gamma Strategies. GAMMA token distributed to all VISR/vVISR/tVISR holders. Visor web properties transferred to Gamma brand.","source":"Gamma Strategies Medium","source_url":"https://medium.com/gamma-strategies/visor-merges-with-gamma-a-re-org-focusing-on-security-and-research-bb6617168566","date_original":"2022-01-01"}],"sources_used":[{"url":"https://rekt.news/visor-finance-rekt","name":"Visor Finance — Rekt News","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260503003358/https://rekt.news/visor-finance-rekt","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-05-03T00:33:58+00:00"},{"url":"https://beosin.medium.com/two-vulnerabilities-in-one-function-the-analysis-of-visor-finance-exploit-a15735e2492","name":"Two Vulnerabilities in One Function — BEOSIN Analysis (Medium)","type":"research","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20251012014926/https://beosin.medium.com/two-vulnerabilities-in-one-function-the-analysis-of-visor-finance-exploit-a15735e2492","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2025-10-12T01:49:26+00:00"},{"url":"https://cryptobriefing.com/8-2m-lost-visor-finance-suffers-latest-defi-hack/","name":"$8.2M Lost as Visor Finance Suffers Latest DeFi Hack — Crypto Briefing","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260213014811/https://cryptobriefing.com/8-2m-lost-visor-finance-suffers-latest-defi-hack/","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-02-13T01:48:11+00:00"},{"url":"https://beincrypto.com/visor-finance-hacked-for-8m-in-latest-defi-exploit/","name":"Visor Finance Hacked For $8M in Latest DeFi Exploit — BeInCrypto","type":"news_article","archive_url":null,"credibility":2,"archive_error":"error:no-request","archive_status":"unarchivable","archive_timestamp":null},{"url":"https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=2021-12-21-2","name":"Visor Finance is Hacked for About $8.2 Million — Web3 Is Going Great","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20250726013641/https://www.web3isgoinggreat.com/?id=2021-12-21-2","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2025-07-26T01:36:41+00:00"},{"url":"https://medium.com/gamma-strategies/visor-merges-with-gamma-a-re-org-focusing-on-security-and-performance-b4deaf67e273","name":"Visor Merges with Gamma — Gamma Strategies Medium","type":"official","archive_url":null,"credibility":2,"archive_error":"error:no-request","archive_status":"unarchivable","archive_timestamp":null},{"url":"https://quadrigainitiative.com/casestudy/visorfinancearbitrageattack.php","name":"Nov 2021 Visor Finance Arbitrage Attack — Quadriga Initiative","type":"research","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260208165257/https://quadrigainitiative.com/casestudy/visorfinancearbitrageattack.php","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-02-08T16:52:57+00:00"},{"url":"https://cryptonewsbtc.org/2021/06/21/visor-finance-releases-500000-defi-heist-post-mortem-report/","name":"Visor Finance Releases $500,000 DeFi Heist Post Mortem — CryptoNewsBTC","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260727225659/https://cryptonewsbtc.org/2021/06/21/visor-finance-releases-500000-defi-heist-post-mortem-report/","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-27T22:56:59+00:00"},{"url":"https://skynet.certik.com/projects/visorfinance","name":"Visor Finance CertiK Skynet Project Insight","type":"research","archive_url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260726034713/https://skynet.certik.com/projects/visorfinance","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-26T03:47:13+00:00"},{"url":"https://code4rena.com/reports/2021-05-visorfinance","name":"Visor Finance Findings and Analysis Report — Code4rena","type":"research","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260516072321/https://code4rena.com/reports/2021-05-visorfinance","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-05-16T07:23:21+00:00"},{"url":"https://medium.com/visorfinance/hypervisor-audit-report-b5b3619c12da","name":"Hypervisor Audit Report — Visor Finance Medium","type":"research","archive_url":null,"credibility":2,"archive_error":"error:no-request","archive_status":"unarchivable","archive_timestamp":null},{"url":"https://rekt.news/gamma-strategies-rekt","name":"Gamma Strategies — Rekt News","type":"news_article","archive_url":"http://web.archive.org/web/20260415171633/https://rekt.news/gamma-strategies-rekt","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-04-15T17:16:33+00:00"},{"url":"https://medium.com/visorfinance/introducing-gamma-an-organization-dedicated-to-funding-active-lp-strategies-and-research-bb6617168566","name":"Introducing Gamma — Visor Finance Medium","type":"official","archive_url":null,"credibility":2,"archive_error":"error:no-request","archive_status":"unarchivable","archive_timestamp":null},{"url":"https://cryptopotato.com/liquidity-management-protocol-visor-gets-hacked-price-plummets-95/","name":"Liquidity Management Protocol Visor Gets Hacked, Price Plummets 95% — CryptoPotato","type":"news_article","archive_url":"https://web.archive.org/web/20260724222945/https://cryptopotato.com/liquidity-management-protocol-visor-gets-hacked-price-plummets-95/","credibility":2,"archive_timestamp":"2026-07-24T22:29:45+00:00"}],"source_tags":[],"addresses":[],"reviewed":false,"reviewed_by":null,"model_used":"claude-sonnet-4-5","created_at":"2026-05-30T13:00:32.495308+00:00","updated_at":"2026-08-29T01:33:06.074+00:00"}}