Summary
Palmswap was a decentralized perpetual futures exchange built on BNB Chain (Binance Smart Chain), launched in 2022 and offering up to 50x leverage trading via its PALM governance token and PLP liquidity provider token. On July 24–25, 2023, the protocol suffered a flash loan price manipulation exploit that drained approximately $901,455 USDT from its liquidity vault due to a critical smart contract logic flaw in the PlpManager contract. The exploiter ultimately returned $721,450 of the stolen funds after bounty negotiations, but the protocol's liquidity partner Gotbit was subsequently indicted and convicted by US federal prosecutors for market manipulation and wire fraud, raising additional integrity concerns about the project's ecosystem.
Connected Entities
1 entities · 10 linked investigations- + 1 more
Timeline(12 events)
2023-06-27
Palmswap publicly announces partnership with Gotbit Hedge Fund to provide liquidity for V2 launch. Gotbit mints and auto-stakes PLP tokens as part of the launch event.
CoinTelegraph Press Release2023-07-24
Flash loan exploit begins. Attacker uses 3,000,000 USDT flash loan to exploit a price calculation flaw in the PlpManager contract, draining approximately 901,455 USDT from Palmswap's liquidity vault.
CertiK Incident Analysis2023-07-25
SlowMist publishes independent on-chain analysis confirming the exploit mechanics and total loss of over $900,000.
SlowMist via Medium2023-07-25
Palmswap team acknowledges the exploit publicly and initiates contact with the attacker's wallet address to negotiate a bounty.
Binance Square2023-07-31
Exploiter returns $721,450 to Palmswap following bounty negotiations, retaining approximately $179,505 as an alleged bounty. Roughly 20% of stolen funds are not recovered.
Binance Square2023-11-19
Palmswap holds V2 community update AMA. Team states that user refunds are pending a 'lengthy legal process' and that repayment in USDT is planned but 'nothing final has been determined.' Roadmap for Q1 2024 features announced.
Palmswap via Medium2024-10-09
US DOJ and SEC announce charges against Gotbit Consulting LLC and its founder Aleksei Andriunin for market manipulation and wire fraud conspiracy. Gotbit had been Palmswap's liquidity partner.
SEC Press Release2025-03-01
Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin pleads guilty to wire fraud and conspiracy to commit market manipulation in US federal court in Boston.
DOJ District of Massachusetts2025-06-01
Gotbit founder Aleksei Andriunin sentenced to eight months in prison and one year of supervised release; company agrees to forfeit $23 million.
DOJ District of Massachusetts2026-05-01
Palmswap protocol is effectively defunct. Website offline, PALM token trades at approximately $0 with no volume, DappRadar lists the protocol as inactive, and no team communications have been issued.
DappRadarDecision Log
- hash: Gf7Cn4WyUEA8waAaor9WX6EP3v6epp1Ea1FgBoHTMzSt
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, 2:54:40 AM
last updated: 5/30/2026, 12:14:58 PM
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