Origin Protocol
Summary
Origin Protocol is a San Francisco-based DeFi and NFT platform founded in 2017 by Josh Fraser and Matthew Liu, best known for its yield-bearing stablecoin Origin Dollar (OUSD) and Origin Ether (OETH). In November 2020, before completing any security audit, OUSD was exploited via a reentrancy flash-loan attack resulting in approximately $7.7 million in losses including over $1 million from the team's own treasury. The protocol subsequently completed multiple audits, compensated affected users, and relaunched; it has continued operating with expanded DeFi yield products through 2025, though the OGN token trades at a fraction of its 2021 all-time high.
Connected Entities
1 entities · 10 linked investigations- + 1 more
Timeline(13 events)
2017-01-01
Origin Protocol founded in San Francisco by Josh Fraser and Matthew Liu.
2018-06-18
Origin Protocol conducts public ICO on CoinList, raising $6.6 million at $0.1364 per OGN token.
2020-09-01
Origin Dollar (OUSD) yield-bearing stablecoin launches on Ethereum mainnet without a completed security audit.
2020-11-17
OUSD exploited via reentrancy flash-loan attack; approximately $7.7 million (11,804 ETH and 2,249,821 DAI) stolen. OUSD price collapses 85% to ~$0.14. Attacker launders funds via Tornado.cash and renBTC.
2020-11-17
Origin co-founders disclose team and treasury lost over $1 million in the exploit. Trail of Bits audit was in progress but not yet completed at time of attack.
2020-12-01
Trail of Bits completes OUSD audit, identifying the critical reentrancy vulnerability and several minor issues. Solidified conducts additional audit of full system.
2020-12-01
Origin Protocol announces detailed compensation plan: full OUSD reimbursement for smaller depositors; 25% OUSD + 75% locked OGN for larger depositors, with 25% annual interest.
2021-01-06
Origin Protocol relaunches OUSD stablecoin with reentrancy guards and post-exploit security improvements following Trail of Bits and Solidified audits.
2021-01-20
Origin opens compensation claims portal for the 700+ affected OUSD depositors. 90-day claim window set to close April 20, 2021.
2021-04-08
OGN token reaches all-time high of approximately $3.39.
2023-05-01
Origin Ether (OETH) launches, using ~95% of OUSD's audited codebase to generate yield on ETH via liquid staking.
2024-07-01
Super OETH launches on Base blockchain, achieving top-10 TVL position on the network. Origin distributes over $6.4 million in yield to product users in 2024.
2025-08-01
Origin launches Origin Vault in partnership with Levva, a diversified ETH yield strategy targeting up to ~23% APY.
Decision Log
- hash: MnjjitXyMSXeJ31QjajEsoB57ti51e7hCqHkXCx7jkS
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, 2:55:00 AM
last updated: 5/28/2026, 6:46:39 PM
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