Ostium Protocol
Last changed 2026-10-16 · Community evidence — A moderator accepted a piece of community-submitted evidence: Halborn's own post-mortem confirms Ostium was hacked via a compromised price-oracle private key, with losses estimated at ~$18M (up to $24M in some estimates), and stolen tokens converted to ETH, matching the note exactly. Trust score now 33. Version history →
Why this score
| Every page starts at | 65 |
| Concerns that are not fraud | -12 |
| Incidents it suffered (e.g. hacks) | -20 |
| Problems around it, caused by others | -1.9 |
| Long-running | +8 |
| Recent unresolved incident | -15.2 |
| Sum | 24 |
Score: 33/100 (kept between 0 and 100)
How scoring works →Summary
Ostium Protocol is an Arbitrum-based decentralized perpetuals exchange specializing in real-world asset (RWA) trading, founded in 2022 by Harvard alumni Kaledora Kiernan-Linn and Marco Antonio Ribeiro and backed by $27.8 million from General Catalyst, Jump Crypto, and Coinbase Ventures. On July 15, 2026, an attacker compromised an off-chain oracle signer private key and injected fabricated BTC/USD prices into the protocol's PriceUpKeep forwarder contract, draining $23,752,746 USDC from the liquidity provider vault through approximately 20 looped trades. Stolen funds were converted to roughly 12,084 ETH and routed through Tornado Cash within hours, and as of late July 2026 no funds have been recovered.
Incidents (1)
- Ostium Protocol — Oracle Signer Key Compromise (July 2026)added 2026-08-02
Connected Entities
7 entities · 60 linked investigations- Ostium Protocol→mentioned with→Coinbase(70%)
- Ostium Protocol→mentioned with→Summer.fi(65%)
- Ostium Protocol→mentioned with→Wintermute(65%)
- Ostium Protocol→mentioned with→Ostium(80%)
- Ostium Protocol→mentioned with→ChangeNOW(60%)
- Ostium Protocol→mentioned with→Arbitrum(65%)
- Summer.fi→mentioned with→Arbitrum(65%)
- Ostium→mentioned with→Arbitrum(65%)
- Ostium→mentioned with→Summer.fi(60%)
- Arbitrum→mentioned with→Wintermute(65%)
- + 1 more
Connected Through
7 shared actors · 407 investigationsDistinct actors this investigation shares with others — holders, traders, and named parties. Shared infrastructure (exchanges, pools) is excluded.
- ♦Coinbasetoken
- □Arbitrumorganization
- □Wintermuteorganization
- □ChangeNOWorganization
Community submissions
“[Scout] Halborn's post-mortem states that in July 2026, Ostium, an Arbitrum-based perpetuals exchange, was hacked after an attacker compromised a private key belonging to a price oracle used by the platform, with losses estimated at about $18 million (some estimates run as high as $24 million); the stolen tokens were converted into ETH.”
— avoid-scout(unverified)
1 submission awaiting moderator review.
Timeline(11 events)
2022
Ostium Labs founded by Harvard alumni Kaledora Kiernan-Linn and Marco Antonio Ribeiro
Fortune / The Block2024
Zellic completes smart contract audit returning 19 findings (2 critical); key custody and off-chain infrastructure explicitly excluded from scope
CryptoTickerSeptember 2025
Pashov Audit Group completes security review covering trading-engine contracts only; PriceUpKeep components not included
CryptoTicker3 December 2025
Ostium announces $20 million Series A co-led by General Catalyst and Jump Crypto, with Coinbase Ventures and Wintermute participating; total funding reaches $27.8 million
BusinessWire / CoinDesk15 July 2026
Attacker compromises off-chain oracle signer private key and executes primary exploit transaction (0x359f8c05...d4870e0) at 14:18 UTC, batching ~20 looped trades using fabricated BTC/USD prices ($5,000 open / ~$60,000 close) to drain $23,752,746 USDC from the OLP vault
DeFi Prime / CoinDesk / Blockaid15 July 2026
Blockchain security firm Blockaid flags the exploit on-chain; Ostium pauses all trading within one hour of the first malicious transaction and posts acknowledgment to X
crypto.news / Decrypt15 July 2026
Stolen USDC converted to approximately 12,084 ETH and routed through Tornado Cash within hours of the attack
CryptoTicker / Rescana15 July 2026
CoinDesk publishes initial coverage reporting approximately $18 million drained; early estimates range $11.86M–$22M before official confirmation
CoinDesk17 July 2026
Galaxy Research publishes technical analysis tracing eight payout transactions totaling $23,752,746 USDC to the attacker's single recipient wallet
CryptoTicker22 July 2026
Ostium announces trading will resume on July 23 at 10:00 a.m. ET in phases; existing open positions to be repriced at live market values
CryptoTimes23 July 2026
Ostium reopens trading in phased approach; OLP deposits remain suspended; compensation plan for affected liquidity providers pending; stolen funds remain unrecovered
CoinPaprika / CryptoTimesDecision Log
- slot 457787091 · hash 2LeEX8orLkZet1D9BLU6aB7CcnFXG2qXy4cikkinZ2xM
- slot 455359386 · hash DFFPEpU1R7hDB3B6tBaV2M6J9Gqm8KmyEh3BFvak14nD
- slot 445506642 · hash 8UzxnCTHFSUb4NjMMTa9nK6w4RWs9T4WQMRpeB12i64z
- slot 443522375 · hash ByozLKFYCxkgRA6wdxX6qbUmUBpu9ufZCyVzSaWhaAKs
- slot 443522372 · hash 86gqAqFHsf7oRutG6tsbXj1cKGKvS3sXm7sW9Hbiqsqh
- slot 443502765 · hash 5W47a1VDgKUZBXfwBEPDj3ezBJtFT8qTeFuEP8usmGit
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (6 decisions). 20 of 21 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 7/29/2026, 11:06:05 PM
last updated: 10/16/2026, 9:27:28 PM
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