Summary
Audius is a decentralized music streaming protocol and its native AUDIO token, launched in 2020 on Ethereum and subsequently migrated to Solana. On July 23, 2022, an attacker exploited a critical re-initialization vulnerability in Audius governance smart contracts, draining 18.56 million AUDIO tokens (valued at approximately $6 million at the time) from the community treasury before swapping them for approximately $1.08 million in ETH via Uniswap and routing funds through Tornado Cash. The platform has continued to operate since the exploit, deploying patched contracts and expanding user and artist partnerships, but the AUDIO token has declined approximately 99.6% from its all-time high and the exploit raised serious questions about audit quality.
Connected Entities
1 entities- + 2 more
Timeline(11 events)
2018-01-01
Audius founded by Roneil Rumburg, Forrest Browning, and Ranidu Lankage; raises $5.5M Series A from General Catalyst.
2019-08-01
Audius testnet launched; independent node operators begin supporting the network.
2020-09-01
Audius mainnet launches alongside the AUDIO token; platform reports over 500,000 monthly active users.
2020-10-01
Governance, staking, and delegation smart contracts deployed on Ethereum mainnet; audited by OpenZeppelin.
2021-08-17
Audius announces partnership with TikTok as its first music streaming integration; AUDIO token surges over 90%.
2021-10-01
Kudelski Security audits Audius smart contracts; re-initialization vulnerability goes undetected.
2022-07-23
Governance exploit: attacker exploits storage collision bug, passes malicious governance proposal, drains 18,564,497 AUDIO (~$6M) from community treasury. Proceeds (~$1.08M ETH) swapped on Uniswap and laundered via Tornado Cash. Audius team deploys fix within 87 minutes.
2022-08-08
U.S. Treasury OFAC sanctions Tornado Cash, the mixer used by the Audius attacker to launder stolen proceeds.
2022-01-01
Audius acquires virtual concert platform SoundStage.fm; platform tops 7.5 million monthly users.
2023-08-23
Tornado Cash co-founders charged by U.S. DOJ with money laundering and sanctions violations.
2026-05-01
AUDIO trading at approximately $0.019, approximately 99.6% below all-time high. Audius warns users of phishing airdrop campaign impersonating the platform.
Decision Log
- hash: 68FGkBHqLaAiBuETGBZhKTtbuDtKMHkSfNCg4kcETaA7
- hash: AZWxucwhsd74AuKviL3NMtRxjsmRekDuyY3mVcUkD877
- hash: Aj422cok6T2vZLak4doDHHPQFDqkkbZUZJEaERC3qnCm
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain and source URLs are archived via the Internet Archive.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/4/2026, 2:54:48 AM
last updated: 6/14/2026, 11:15:51 PM
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