LiFi Finance
Summary
LI.FI is a Berlin-based cross-chain bridge and DEX aggregation protocol founded in 2021 by Philipp Zentner and Max Klenk. The protocol has suffered two significant smart contract exploits — a $600,000 loss in March 2022 and an $11.6 million loss in July 2024 — both stemming from the same class of arbitrary-call vulnerability, prompting criticism from security researchers that lessons were not learned. Separately, blockchain investigator ZachXBT alleged in June 2025 that North Korean (DPRK) actors accounted for an estimated 15–25% of the protocol's volume during May 2025, using LI.FI to launder funds from the Bybit hack.
Connected Entities
1 entities- + 1 more
Timeline(11 events)
2021-01-01
LI.FI founded in Berlin, Germany by Philipp Zentner and Max Klenk.
2022-03-20
First exploit: attacker drains approximately $600,000 from 29 wallets using arbitrary call vulnerability in the swapping feature. LI.FI disables swap methods and publishes post-mortem.
2022-07-01
LI.FI raises $5.5 million seed round led by 1kx.
2023-03-01
LI.FI raises $17.5 million Series A co-led by CoinFund and Superscrypt.
2024-07-11
LI.FI deploys new GasZipFacet smart contract component, missing whitelist validation present in other facets.
2024-07-16
Second exploit: attacker exploits GasZipFacet arbitrary call vulnerability, draining approximately $11.6 million from 153 wallets on Ethereum and Arbitrum. Protocol immediately disables vulnerable facet. PeckShield characterizes it as 'basically the same' bug as 2022.
2024-07-18
LI.FI announces voluntary compensation plan for the 153 affected wallets, backed by major investors.
2025-02-01
Bybit exchange suffers approximately $1.4 billion hack attributed to North Korean Lazarus Group.
2025-05-01
LI.FI reports record May 2025 metrics: $3 billion in volume and 4.37 million executed transactions.
2025-06-03
ZachXBT publicly alleges that DPRK hackers laundering Bybit hack proceeds accounted for 15–25% of LI.FI's May 2025 activity, and that over half of Bybit stolen funds had become untraceable on-chain.
2025-12-11
LI.FI raises $29 million Series A extension led by Multicoin Capital and CoinFund, bringing total capital raised to approximately $51.7 million.
Decision Log
- hash: BoGXVnbgVcnaWqqQtZ8o5KnBx2H5E55T2gGEefnwc9y3
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, 2:54:31 AM
last updated: 5/28/2026, 3:44:05 AM
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