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anchored·3HfJ16…MQnASummary
Cork V1 is a DeFi depeg protection protocol built on Ethereum that launched its public beta on March 4, 2025 and was exploited for approximately $12 million on May 28, 2025, less than three months after launch. The exploit resulted from a lack of input validation in the CorkHook smart contract and permissionless market creation logic, a vulnerability that slipped past four separate security audits from Quantstamp, Cantina, Sherlock, and Runtime Verification — three of which explicitly excluded the vulnerable contract from scope. All protocol functions were paused following the incident, stolen funds were laundered through Tornado Cash, and no user compensation plan has been publicly confirmed.
Connected Entities
7 entities · 60 linked investigations- Roman Storm→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Cork Protocol→mentioned with→Cork V1(75%)
- Cork Protocol→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Cork Protocol→mentioned with→Ethena(70%)
- Cork Protocol→mentioned with→Uniswap(60%)
- Ethena→mentioned with→Ethereum(75%)
- Uniswap→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Lido Finance→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Cork V1→mentioned with→Lido Finance(80%)
- Cork V1→mentioned with→Roman Storm(80%)
- + 6 more
Timeline(8 events)
2023
Cork Protocol founded by Phil Fogel, Robert Schmitt, Anna Stone, and David Stancel.
10 September 2024
Cork Protocol joins a16z Crypto's Fall 2024 accelerator cohort and secures initial funding.
8 January 2025
Cork Protocol launches Phoenix, described as one of the first risk management solutions operating as a decentralized layer on Ethereum.
4 March 2025
Cork V1 public beta goes live on Ethereum Mainnet with launch partners Lido Finance, EtherFi, Ethena, and Sky.
28 May 2025
Cork Protocol exploited for approximately $12 million (3,761.878 wstETH) via a flawed CorkHook access control and permissionless fake market creation. All contracts paused. Attacker wallet: 0xea6f30e360192bae715599e15e2f765b49e4da98.
29 May 2025
Multiple security firms (SlowMist, QuillAudits, Halborn, CertiK, Dedaub) publish exploit analysis reports. Post-mortem published by Cork team.
25 June 2025
Cork exploiter resurfaces and launders approximately 4,520 ETH (~$11 million) through Tornado Cash. Also donates 10 ETH to Roman Storm's legal defense fund. Sends on-chain messages criticizing audit firms, stating 'Sherlock missed it.'
21 January 2026
Cork raises $5.5M seed round led by a16z CSX and Road Capital to continue building tokenized risk infrastructure.
Decision Log
- hash: Fw6x7UzeTYesGfco5QLFWkdLjv9Wk2Z4fcQbZuAzBfyY
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (1 event). 15 of 20 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/4/2026, 2:54:23 AM
last updated: 8/29/2026, 12:34:18 PM
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