PlayDapp

Private Key Leakage

Estimated loss

$290.00M

VERDICT —OUT OF SCOPE

Root cause is private-key / signer compromise — the on-chain contract behaved exactly as written. No pre-deployment source audit or bytecode review reaches the key-custody perimeter; this is operational-security territory (HSM/MPC hygiene, key rotation, hot-wallet isolation). Bytecode would show nothing wrong.

▰ METHOD

PRIVATE KEY

PRIVATE-KEY

Root cause

Root-cause analysis not yet published. The incident description below contains all currently available signal — review the attack transaction directly for definitive forensics.

Forensic narrative

The blockchain gaming platform PlayDapp was hacked, with the attacker's address being added as a minter, minting 200 million PLA tokens (valued at $36.5 million). Shortly after the incident, PlayDapp sent a message to the attacker through on-chain transactions, requesting the return of the stolen funds and offering a $1 million bug bounty reward, but negotiations ultimately failed. On February 12, the hacker minted an additional 1.59 billion PLA tokens, valued at $253.9 million, and began transferring them through cryptocurrency trading platforms. On February 13, PlayDapp announced on Twitter that the PLA smart contract had been paused, while also advising users to cease trading for migration snapshots and stating that every effort is being made to protect holders' assets. Attack method (per SlowMist): Private Key Leakage. Reported loss: $ 290,000,000.

Primary source

https://playdapp.medium.com/important-notice-pla-mitigation-plan-a52f15ad0d42 ↗

Sourced from

slowmist

Technical record