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Cypher Protocol

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[AI-DRAFTED · AWAITING VERIFICATION][src:defillama]

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anchored·3jdJUT…qc47

Summary

Cypher Protocol was a Solana-based cross-margin decentralized exchange (DEX) and perpetuals trading platform that suffered a critical smart contract exploit in August 2023 resulting in approximately $1 million in losses. Following the exploit, an insider contributor known as 'Hoak' systematically drained over $314,000 from the community redemption fund established to reimburse hack victims, admitting publicly to gambling the funds away. The protocol appears effectively defunct, having failed to deliver meaningful restitution to users who received roughly 31 cents on the dollar from the original exploit fund before that fund itself was embezzled.

Connected Entities

2 entities
Organizations
□Cypher
Protocols
⌂Cypher Protocol
Relationships
    Have evidence about Cypher Protocol?

    Timeline(10 events)

    7 August 2023

    Cypher Protocol smart contract exploited; approximately $1,035,203 in SOL and USDC stolen via margin-check and isolated sub-account vulnerabilities.

    7 August 2023

    Cypher Protocol freezes smart contract and publicly announces the exploit, contacts the hacker, and initiates investigation with Chainalysis, TRM Labs, and ZachXBT.

    7 August 2023

    Attacker transfers 30,000 USDC to Binance Solana address 'kiing.sol' in apparent attempt to cash out stolen funds.

    10 August 2023

    Cypher Protocol announces approximately $600,000 of stolen funds have been frozen across centralized exchanges.

    16 August 2023

    Cypher Protocol announces 'socialized losses policy' redemption plan; affected users to receive approximately 31 cents on the dollar based on snapshot balances.

    23 August 2023

    Cypher Protocol announces plans for a public token sale as an additional user restitution mechanism; 50 million tokens airdropped to affected depositors.

    December 2023

    Core contributor 'Hoak' allegedly begins systematic withdrawals from the Cypher redemption contract, per his later public admission.

    14 May 2024

    Hoak publicly confesses on Twitter/X to stealing $314,674 from the Cypher redemption contract over 36 transactions and gambling the funds away, citing a 'crippling gambling addiction.'

    14 May 2024

    Cypher founder Barrett confirms the theft, states he has submitted Hoak's identity and evidence to law enforcement, and is following their lead on next steps.

    14 May 2024

    ZachXBT publicly confirms he has Hoak's personal identifying information from the 2023 exploit investigation and will share with law enforcement as needed.

    Provenance & Audit Trail
    Anchored on SolanaVerify on-chain12 Wayback Archivessrc:defillama

    Decision Log

    This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (1 event). 12 of 16 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.

    full audit log →version history →

    model: claude-sonnet-4-6

    generated: 5/4/2026, 2:54:39 AM

    last updated: 8/30/2026, 5:14:10 AM

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