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Socket Protocol

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anchored·33vHoH…6ajC

Summary

Socket Protocol (also marketed as Bungee Exchange) is a cross-chain interoperability and liquidity-routing protocol founded in 2021 by Vaibhav Chellani and Rishabh Khurana. On January 16, 2024, a newly deployed route module containing an unvalidated calldata vulnerability was exploited, draining approximately $3.3 million from approximately 230 wallets that had granted infinite token approvals to the SocketGateway contract. In an unusual outcome for a DeFi exploit, Socket negotiated the return of 1,032 ETH (~$2.3 million) from the attacker and covered the remaining ~$1.1 million shortfall itself, making all affected users whole.

Connected Entities

1 entities
Protocols
⌂Socket Protocol
Relationships
    Have evidence about Socket Protocol?

    Timeline(10 events)

    2021

    Socket Protocol founded by Vaibhav Chellani and Rishabh Khurana, building on prior Biconomy infrastructure experience.

    CoinDesk

    March 2022

    Socket closes $5 million seed round led by Framework Ventures.

    CoinDesk

    6 September 2023

    Socket raises $5 million strategic round co-led by Coinbase Ventures and Framework Ventures to expand interoperability with Coinbase Wallet and Base.

    CoinDesk

    13 January 2024

    Admin transaction adds the vulnerable WrappedTokenSwapperImpl route to the SocketGateway contract — three days before the exploit.

    CertiK Incident Analysis

    16 January 2024

    Attacker exploits unvalidated calldata in the new route module at 19:03 UTC, draining approximately $3.3 million from ~230 wallets with infinite approvals to SocketGateway in two transactions.

    CertiK Incident Analysis / The Block

    16 January 2024

    Socket team disables the vulnerable route and pauses contracts within approximately 14 minutes of the exploit.

    Halborn

    16 January 2024

    Socket admin wallet sends on-chain message to the attacker initiating bounty negotiation and requesting return of funds within 12 hours.

    CryptoBriefing

    17 January 2024

    Socket and Bungee Exchange resume normal operations after patching the vulnerable module.

    CoinDesk

    23 January 2024

    Socket announces recovery of 1,032 ETH (~$2.3M) from the attacker following negotiations, and commits to covering the remaining ~$1.1M shortfall to make all 232 affected users whole.

    The Block / CoinTelegraph

    23 January 2024

    Compensation portal launched at recovery.socket.tech; affected users can claim reimbursement by signing an on-chain message without granting new approvals.

    Blockworks
    Provenance & Audit Trail
    Anchored on SolanaVerify on-chain16 Wayback Archives

    Decision Log

    This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (3 events). 16 of 18 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.

    full audit log →version history →

    model: claude-sonnet-4-6

    generated: 5/31/2026, 6:59:58 AM

    last updated: 7/26/2026, 4:53:38 AM

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