Skip to main content
Sign in
Kronos Research1 decision on this page

Audit log

Every state-changing event for Kronos Research: moderation decisions on community submissions, plus corrections and updates from the news pipeline. URL-based decisions carry three independent witnesses — the original source, an Internet Archive snapshot taken at submission time, and a Solana memo signed by our publicly-disclosed publisher key.

  1. #1publishby system:backfill
    2026-05-20 15:41:07Z
    Score: ?? (no score change)
    anchoranchored
    chain
    mainnet-betaslot 421,014,708
    sig
    4LCRNzBVDqij…gvu1smtsexplorer ↗
    hash
    F3xKxey26xka…oCsvuBf1sha256 → base58
    verifying row…full verify ↗
    canonical bytes (5387 B) ▸
    {"actor":"system:backfill","investigation_id":"4f02a3ce-393a-4e1c-a5f7-710e1a35a9cd","kind":"publish","page_slug":"kronos-research","published_at":"2026-05-20T15:41:07.623Z","sequence_num":1,"snapshot":{"content_type":"investigation","entity_name":"Kronos Research","sections":[{"content":"","heading":"","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://medium.com/@C137K/from-taiwan-to-the-world-stage-kronos-research-and-their-ascension-in-crypto-market-making-d92e08941d78"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://www.kronosresearch.com/"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://iq.wiki/wiki/mark-pimentel"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://iq.wiki/wiki/jack-tan"}]},{"content":"","heading":"","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/kronos-research-halts-trading-25-m-hack-investigation"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://www.halborn.com/blog/post/explained-the-kronos-research-hack-november-2023"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://www.coindesk.com/markets/2023/11/28/crypto-trading-firm-kronos-research-offers-10-bounty-to-hacker"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://rekt.news/kronos-rekt"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/kronos-research-hacker-funds-tornado-cash-exploit"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://cryptonews.com/news/kronos-research-hacker-launders-4m-through-tornado-cash/"}]},{"content":"","heading":"","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://cryptonews.net/news/legal/21491729/"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://blockchain.news/news/quant-firm-kronos-Research-loses-14m-code-tampered-by-disgruntled-engineers"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://rekt.news/kronos-rekt"}]},{"content":"","heading":"","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://woox.io/blog/transparency-update-liquidity-incident-review"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://woo.org/blog/en/transparency-update-liquidity-incident-review"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://rekt.news/kronos-rekt"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://www.theblock.co/post/273294/woo-x-fundraise-improve-liquidity"}]},{"content":"","heading":"","severity":"medium","sources":[{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/kronos-research-halts-trading-25-m-hack-investigation"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://cryptonews.net/news/legal/21491729/"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://woox.io/blog/transparency-update-liquidity-incident-review"},{"credibility":3,"name":"","type":"other","url":"https://cointelegraph.com/news/kronos-research-hacker-funds-tornado-cash-exploit"}]}],"sources_used":[],"summary":"Kronos Research is a Taipei-based cryptocurrency quantitative trading firm and market maker founded in 2018 by Mark Pimentel and Jack Tan. The firm experienced two serious security incidents within months of each other in 2023: an insider sabotage case in which two disgruntled engineers tampered with trading code causing $1.4 million in losses, and an external hack in November 2023 where compromised API keys led to the theft of approximately $25–26 million. The November hack cascaded onto WOO X, an exchange Kronos incubated and served as primary liquidity provider, causing a temporary trading halt and liquidations for 227 users.","timeline":[{"date":"2018-06-01","event":"Kronos Research founded in Taipei, Taiwan by Mark Pimentel and Jack Tan.","source":""},{"date":"2019-01-01","event":"Kronos Research incubates WOO Network (later WOO X) and becomes its primary backstop liquidity provider.","source":""},{"date":"2023-08-27","event":"Two disgruntled former engineers convicted in Taipei court for tampering with Kronos Research trading algorithms over unpaid bonuses, causing $1.4 million in losses.","source":""},{"date":"2023-11-18","event":"Unauthorized party accesses Kronos Research exchange API keys and begins draining approximately $25–26 million across multiple exchanges. WOO X halts all trading at approximately 21:00 UTC due to liquidity shortage.","source":""},{"date":"2023-11-19","event":"Kronos Research publicly discloses the API key hack via X. Firm states losses will be covered internally with no partners affected. WOO X fully restores operations within approximately 11 hours.","source":""},{"date":"2023-11-21","event":"WOO X publishes transparency report detailing 227 user liquidations during the liquidity gap and confirms full user compensation.","source":""},{"date":"2023-11-28","event":"Kronos Research publicly offers hacker a 10% bounty (approximately $2.5 million) to return 90% of stolen funds, with a deadline of November 30, 2023 08:00 UTC and threat of legal action.","source":""},{"date":"2023-11-30","event":"Kronos Research bounty deadline passes with no return of funds reported.","source":""},{"date":"2024-05-01","event":"Hacker begins laundering stolen funds through Tornado Cash, moving approximately $4 million in 10 batches of 100 ETH.","source":""}]},"v":1}
    Verify offline (run on your own machine)
    python -m src.verify_decision e7a58799-aba9-497c-96a5-4aa803bf7a76
How verification works. The “Row integrity” check above is computed in your browser — your machine recomputes the SHA-256 of the canonical bytes and compares against the stored hash. No avoid.net server can fake that check. The “full verify” link goes one level deeper: your browser fetches the on-chain transaction from a Solana RPC node and confirms the same hash is in the memo. If you don’t want to trust either avoid.net or the public RPC, run the CLI verifier on your own machine — python -m src.verify_decision <event_id>.