aUSD
Another depeg — Acala trace report reveals 3B aUSD erroneously minted
High-profile security incidents continue to be a theme in 2022 as the Acala Network joined a long list of stricken platforms to fall prey to exploits. Acala’s aUSD token, which acts as the native stablecoin for the Polkadot and Kusama blockchains, saw its value plummet 99% after a misconfiguration of the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool was exploited after its launch on Aug. 14. Initial estimates from Acala noted that 1.2 billion aUSD were minted without the necessary collateral – seeing the token’s value depeg from its 1:1 USD ratio to a bottom of $.01. Acala put its network in maintenance mode to freeze funds and eventually managed to recoup a significant portion of the uncollateralized tokens. The Acala community proposed and voted on a referendum to identify and destroy the erroneously m...
Network and token freeze after Acala exploit raises questions
The Acala Network’s aUSD stablecoin depegged by over 99% over the weekend and forced the Acala team to pause a hacker’s wallet, raising concerns about its claim of being decentralized. On Aug. 14, a hacker took advantage of a bug on the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool which resulted in 1.2 billion aUSD being minted without collateral. This event crashed the USD-pegged stablecoin to a cent, and in response, the Acala team froze the erroneously minted tokens by placing the network in maintenance mode. The move also halted other features such as swaps, xcm (cross-chain communications on Polkadot), and the oracle pallet price feeds until “further notice” We have identified the issue as a misconfiguration of the iBTC/aUSD liquidity pool (which went live earlier today) that resulted in error mints of a...
