Value DeFi Suffers $6M Flash Loan Attack

Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocol Value DeFi was exploited for approximately $6 million earlier Saturday, possibly due to a flash loan attack, a scheme often seen in the fast-growing DeFi sector.

• "A complex attack" on Value DeFi's MultiStables vault has caused a net loss of $6 million, according to a tweet by Value DeFi on Saturday.
• The exploit appears to be a flash loan attack, according to data from Etherscan, after an attacker or attackers borrowed 80,000 ether from the DeFi lending platform Aave.
• Flash loans allow users to borrow funds without collateralization because the lender expects the funds would be returned instantly.
• By taking advantage of the uncollateralized loans, the attackers arbitraged the funds between stablecoins dai and USDC after depositing funds in the Value DeFi's MultiStables vault.
• At press time, the price of the protocol's native token value liquidity plummeted to $1.99, down 27.9% from around $2.76 before the attack, according to data from CoinGecko.
• Flash loan attacks are common in the DeFi sector: Value DeFi's loss came just two days after another DeFi platform Akropolis suffered a similar hack and lost about $2 million in total.
• The team behind Value DeFi did not return CoinDesk's questions by press time.