KyberSwap cuts 50% of staff after hack

In November, decentralized exchange KyberSwap faced “unprecedented problems” due to the Elastic Pools liquidity pool hack. This led to a series of actions, including staff cuts, according to project founder Victor Tran.

In the past month, KyberSwap has faced unprecedented challenges due to the Elastic exploit. Despite this, I am grateful to say that our core business, including the Aggregator and Limit Order functions, remains robust.

Moreover, we will soon be launching our Zap API, an…

— Victor Tran (@vutran54) December 25, 2023

In December, the team implemented treasury grants to cover 100% of user losses. In addition, the project made “significant changes” to its business operations to ensure further development, including the suspension of liquidity protocol initiatives and the KyberAI project.

“Unfortunately, we have also cut the staff by 50%. The past few days have been some of the hardest on my journey as an entrepreneur. The decision to part ways with many members of our team was heartbreaking,” admitted the top executive.

According to him, every laid-off employee was committed to advancing DeFi and possessed high qualifications. Tran urged founders of Web3-projects to consider freelance specialists.

In November, an unknown hacker withdrew from the protocol around $47 million. According to a X user alias Spreek, the stolen assets included $7.5 million on the Ethereum network, $15 million on Optimism, $16 million on Arbitrum, $2.8 million on Polygon and $870,000 on Base.

Besoin experts assessed the exchange’s losses at approximately $48 million across various assets, “primarily including 16,217 ETH, 3,987,332 ARB, 591,441 OP and 1,111,926 DAI”.

In response to the offer to return the withdrawn funds for a reward, the hacker behind the platform demanded full control of the project be transferred to him. The ultimatum deadline expired on December 10.