Veil Cash
Last changed 2026-10-10 · Score recalculated — Rescored under Scoring v2, the published formula (avoid.net/scoring): 38 → 59. Problems weighed by who is responsible: concerns that are not fraud −9.6, incidents the subject suffered −3.2, problems around the subject, caused by others −2.4; legitimacy credit long-running +4, regulated +5; fact-check adjustments (−10) now shown as page reliability, not in the score. Version history →
Why this score
| Every page starts at | 65 |
| Concerns that are not fraud | -9.6 |
| Incidents it suffered (e.g. hacks) | -3.2 |
| Problems around it, caused by others | -2.4 |
| Long-running | +4 |
| Regulated | +5 |
| Sum | 59 |
Score: 59/100 (kept between 0 and 100)
How scoring works →Summary
Veil Cash is a zero-knowledge privacy protocol deployed on Coinbase's Base L2 network, enabling anonymous ETH and USDC transfers via zk-SNARK proofs and a UTXO model. In February 2026 the protocol's legacy pools were exploited due to an incomplete Groth16 trusted-setup ceremony, resulting in 2.9 ETH being drained before funds were returned by the exploiter. The incident attracted industry attention because the same misconfiguration pattern was subsequently replicated in a larger $2.26 million exploit of FoomCash, raising broader questions about cryptographic setup hygiene across ZK DeFi protocols.
Connected Entities
7 entities · 60 linked investigations- Ethereum→mentioned with→Coinbase(60%)
- ZachXBT→mentioned with→Ethereum(70%)
- ZachXBT→mentioned with→Binance(60%)
- Binance→mentioned with→Ethereum(65%)
- Coinbase→mentioned with→Base(70%)
- Coinbase→mentioned with→ZachXBT(70%)
- Ethereum→mentioned with→Vitalik Buterin(80%)
- Veil Cash→mentioned with→Vitalik Buterin(80%)
- Vitalik Buterin→mentioned with→Ethereum(65%)
- Vitalik Buterin→mentioned with→ZachXBT(70%)
- + 7 more
Connected Through
6 shared actors · 595 investigationsDistinct actors this investigation shares with others — holders, traders, and named parties. Shared infrastructure (exchanges, pools) is excluded.
- □Ethereumorganization
- □ZachXBTorganization
- □Binanceorganization
- ♦Coinbasetoken
Timeline(10 events)
2024
Veil Cash protocol launches on Base L2 with zk-SNARK privacy pools for ETH and USDC.
June 2024
Coinbase EAS (Ethereum Attestation Service) integration introduced, allowing Coinbase-verified users auto-approval into verified pools.
2025
Pashov Audit Group completes a security review of Veil Cash smart contracts; the Groth16 verifier contract is explicitly listed out of scope.
21 February 2026
Attacker exploits the Groth16 verifier misconfiguration (delta == gamma) in Veil Cash's legacy Base pool, executing 29 fraudulent withdrawals and draining 2.9 ETH in a single transaction.
21 February 2026
DefimonAlerts (Decurity security firm) intervenes and rescues remaining pool funds from the legacy pools.
21 February 2026
Exploiter returns all drained funds unprompted at approximately 22:05 UTC; 100% of Veil Cash user funds recovered.
22 February 2026
Public proof-of-concept for the Veil Cash Groth16 exploit published on GitHub by researcher DK27ss. Rekt.news covers incident as 'The Unfinished Proof'.
22 February 2026
Pashov Audit Group publicly confirms on X that the verifier was out of scope for their audit engagement.
26 February 2026
FoomCash suffers a $2.26 million exploit using the identical Groth16 misconfiguration pattern first publicly documented in the Veil Cash incident.
March 2026
CryptoTimes and Halborn publish post-mortems linking the FoomCash exploit directly to the Veil Cash incident as the originating template.
Decision Log
- slot 455364868 · hash GK1voGEhMXAhY7VUsgq4C1GvF5SDPA7oYHqHdgnd6oe3
- slot 445607634 · hash Azi3Rq6FcAdahCuEYDNGKHU1b4kZ1VEg2VPMPXhSmhTJ
- slot 423943776 · hash 6UbtxyB86cqgY2tWMFQaBCmVGroKPTeUkVapaH1iwxZz
- slot 423943770 · hash 848Fxaa1iBMTjdcSyHJDKTrSjmazjTobdeNUZ3qfmqCt
- slot 422970375 · hash FYiVNJqQoVU6vj17cmHKU8hrk7vTJvBoFxq3CZEdmwkv
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (5 decisions). 13 of 18 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/4/2026, 2:54:13 AM
last updated: 10/10/2026, 6:45:10 PM
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