Truebit Smart Contract Exploit Leads to $26M Token Mint and 99% TRU Price Drop

A security breach in the Truebit protocol has led to a $26 million loss and a near-complete collapse of the TRU token price.

The exploit involved a smart contract flaw that allowed an attacker to mint tokens at no cost, draining the contract’s ETH reserves. The vulnerability stemmed from a lack of overflow protection in the contract’s calculations.

The TRU token price fell from $0.16 to $0.0000000029 within hours of the incident being reported. This represents one of the most severe token devaluations in recent DeFi history.

Why Did This Happen?

The attack exploited a pricing logic failure in the Truebit Protocol’s smart contract. Specifically, the getPurchasePrice function returned a zero price for unusually large mint requests. This allowed the attacker to mint and sell tokens rapidly, draining the protocol’s reserves.

The contract was compiled with Solidity 0.6.10, which did not include built-in overflow checks. This allowed the result to wrap around to near-zero when the maximum value of “uint256” was exceeded.

How Did Markets React?

The exploit had an immediate impact on the TRU token. Within hours of the incident being reported, the token’s value plummeted by more than 99%. This collapse left the token essentially worthless on major exchanges.

The broader DeFi market also reacted to the incident. The exploit added to growing concerns about the security of smart contracts, particularly those with long deployment histories.

What Are Analysts Watching Next?

The Truebit incident highlights the risks associated with legacy smart contracts. Many of these contracts lack modern security patterns and may not have undergone rigorous formal verification.

Analysts are now closely monitoring other older smart contracts across the Ethereum ecosystem to identify similar vulnerabilities. This could lead to preemptive security upgrades in multiple DeFi protocols.

Truebit has confirmed that it is in contact with law enforcement and is taking all available measures to address the incident. The team has not yet released a full post-mortem analysis but has stated that updates will be shared through official channels.

The incident also raises questions about the sustainability of complex DeFi protocols. As the Ethereum ecosystem continues to expand, such security failures could undermine confidence in decentralized finance.

The broader implications extend beyond Truebit itself. This incident reinforces concerns about the security of DeFi protocols and the need for continuous security auditing and code maintenance.

The Truebit team has not yet announced recovery plans or whether users will be made whole. The team has reiterated that updates will be shared via its official communication channels.