StableMagnet
Summary
StableMagnet was a stablecoin yield and DEX protocol launched on Binance Smart Chain (BSC) that executed a deliberate rug pull on June 23-24, 2021, stealing approximately $27 million in USDT, USDC, and BUSD from over 1,000 users. The team concealed a malicious backdoor by substituting an unverified SwapUtils library for the one shown in publicly audited source code — a novel attack vector that exposed a critical gap in how block explorers verify linked library code. Following an anonymous white-hat investigation and Manchester police arrests, most of the stolen funds were eventually returned by late 2022.
Connected Entities
1 entitiesTimeline(7 events)
2021-06-01
StableMagnet launches on Binance Smart Chain, offering a USDT/USDC/BUSD 3Pool stablecoin DEX with a TechRate audit in place.
2021-06-23
StableMagnet team activates malicious backdoor in the unverified SwapUtils library (0xE25d05777BB4bD0FD0Ca1297C434e612803eaA9a), draining approximately $22.2 million in USDT, USDC, and BUSD from the 3Pool and sweeping tokens from wallets with open approvals. Total losses reach approximately $27 million.
2021-06-24
PeckShield alerts the crypto community on Twitter that StableMagnet's SwapUtils library is unverified and different from the main swap contract source code, urging users to revoke approvals immediately. Rekt News publishes a detailed post-mortem.
2021-06-24
Stolen funds are bridged from BSC to Ethereum via AnySwap/Multichain and converted from USDT to DAI in an apparent laundering attempt. All StableMagnet websites and social media accounts go offline.
2021-07-01
Halborn publishes detailed technical analysis of the library substitution attack vector, noting the structural verification gap in Etherscan and BscScan.
2022-01-30
An anonymous white-hat hacker goes public (via CoinTelegraph and Bankless Times coverage) with details of their investigation: they identified alleged perpetrators as Hong Kong-based individuals, tracked their travel to Manchester, UK, and cooperated with Manchester police, who arrested suspects and recovered approximately $9 million from a USB device.
2022-12-01
Approximately $24 million of the originally stolen $27 million is reported returned to victims, following arrests and cooperation from alleged co-conspirators, per Quadriga Initiative records.
Decision Log
- hash: 3PVBfqYyCfFXp1Th3CXautPJ8tJDL44mQksNVz4N3ort
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, 2:54:56 AM
last updated: 5/26/2026, 3:49:38 AM
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