Summary
Bondly Finance is a DeFi and NFT protocol launched in September 2020 that suffered a major exploit on July 14-15, 2021, in which 373 million BONDLY tokens were minted via owner-level credentials and sold into liquidity pools, causing an 82% token price collapse and approximately $5.9-7.5 million in losses. The exploit originated from the protocol owner's address, prompting blockchain security firm PeckShield to allege a potential rug pull, though the team attributed it to compromised credentials belonging to CEO Brandon Smith. Following acquisition by Animoca Brands in September 2021 and a rebrand to Forj in May 2022, the project has undergone significant leadership changes; the original founder departed under a cloud of unresolved questions about the exploit's true origin.
Connected Entities
1 entities- + 2 more
Timeline(12 events)
2020-09-01
Bondly Finance launched by founder Brandon Smith on Polkadot blockchain
2021-02-24
Logan Paul NFT drop via Bondly generates approximately $3.5 million in sales in 24 hours
2021-07-14
Attacker pre-funds exploit transactions via Tornado.Cash; 373 million BONDLY tokens transferred from Staking Rewards contract starting at 12:16 AM UTC July 15
2021-07-15
BONDLY token price collapses 82% within hours; Bondly team advises users to stop trading; PeckShield alleges potential rug pull based on owner-address origin of minted tokens
2021-07-16
CEO Brandon Smith voluntarily takes leave of absence; co-founder Harry Liu assumes CEO role
2021-07-19
Bondly publishes initial postmortem attributing attack to compromised CEO password account containing hardware wallet recovery phrase
2021-08-29
Replacement BONDLY token claim portal opens for affected holders
2021-09-17
Animoca Brands announces binding agreement to acquire majority stake in Bondly; Harry Liu confirmed as CEO
2021-11-24
BONDLY token reaches all-time high of approximately $0.202
2022-05-01
Bondly Finance announces strategic rebrand to Forj under Animoca Brands ownership
2022-12-31
BONDLY/Forj token ends year at approximately $0.0052, down roughly 95% from all-time high
2025-01-01
Forj (BONDLY) token price approximately $0.00048, representing a loss of over 99% from all-time high
Decision Log
- hash: EEWP4UsiSrogyQP9cABcG64NWTBnXha2Qqazx2gamvSB
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain and source URLs are archived via the Internet Archive.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/4/2026, 2:54:55 AM
last updated: 5/27/2026, 6:12:33 PM
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