More than 1,400 liquidity pools associated with outdated DxSale contracts on BNB Chain were exploited in a $7.3 million attack, according to blockchain security firms on May 29.
Growing Threat
The attack contributes to a rising number of DeFi breaches this month, prompting security experts to caution that older smart contracts and inadequate access controls are leaving protocols vulnerable.
Attack Details
According to the on-chain security account PeckShieldAlert, a user identified as “Tahax” first discovered the exploit. Their report indicates that attackers targeted at least 1,400 old DxSale liquidity pool contracts on BNB Chain, extracting approximately $7.3 million worth of cryptocurrency. The stolen funds were then routed through AnySwap in an attempt to conceal the transaction trail.
PeckShield further noted that an address identified as “0xC457…FA69” transferred 2,958 BNB from the hack, valued at $1.87 million, into two primary wallets. These wallets subsequently moved the funds through several deposit addresses on Binance.
DxSale is a launchpad platform that allows crypto projects to create tokens and liquidity pools without developing their own infrastructure. The platform was popular about five years ago, with many projects launching tokens on BNB Chain locking their liquidity pools with the protocol.
According to Tahax, the locker still held liquidity pools from projects that had been untouched for years, with founders and holders believing they were secure. However, nearly nine months ago, the DxSale deployer transferred ownership of the locker to a new wallet without any public announcement or migration notice. The on-chain investigator claims that the locker contract was unverified and likely contained a backdoor, which the attacker exploited.
Two days prior, 0xC457…FA69, a new wallet funded from Bybit and possibly routed through AnySwap, reportedly took ownership of the locker and, within hours, began draining the liquidity pools.
DxSale has yet to release a statement regarding the exploit.
Broader Context
The DxSale hack is part of a larger trend. The crypto sector lost at least $650 million in April due to similar incidents. May has also seen its share of attacks, including one last week where an individual stole over $11 million from the Verus bridge by exploiting a flaw in its payment verification process. Security researchers reported that the attacker submitted a small transaction that passed verification while still unlocking large withdrawals from the bridge’s reserves.
Earlier in the month, liquidity provider TrustedVolumes was also hit for approximately $5.9 million after a hacker exploited weaknesses in its custom settlement system. Analysts pointed out that the exploit succeeded because the protocol checked authorization against one address while pulling funds from another.
THORChain was also affected, with on-chain sleuth ZachXBT stating it may have lost over $10 million, causing its RUNE token to plummet 15% within minutes.
This ongoing series of exploits has prompted a reaction, with OpenZeppelin co-founder Manuel Aráoz declaring “all of DeFi unsafe,” arguing that AI-assisted attackers are discovering vulnerabilities faster than security teams can fix them.
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