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anchored·4UrxGY…SAqySummary
Pickle Finance was an Ethereum-based DeFi yield aggregator launched in September 2020 that suffered a critical smart contract exploit on November 21, 2020, resulting in the theft of approximately 19.76 million DAI (roughly $19.7 million) from its pDAI PickleJar. The exploit, known as the 'Evil Jar Attack,' combined three design flaws in unaudited contract code and led to a 50% collapse in the PICKLE token price, with hack proceeds later laundered through Tornado Cash. The protocol subsequently merged with Yearn Finance but never meaningfully recovered; it officially announced its shutdown in 2025 with the UI disabled on October 1, 2025.
Connected Entities
2 entities · 1 linked investigation- + 5 more
Connected Through
1 shared actor · 1 investigationDistinct actors this investigation shares with others — holders, traders, and named parties. Shared infrastructure (exchanges, pools) is excluded.
- ⌂Pickle Financeprotocolalso inPickle Finance·28
Timeline(15 events)
September 2020
Pickle Finance launches on Ethereum as a yield aggregator offering Pickle Jars and Pickle Farms.
3 October 2020
MixBytes completes a security audit of Pickle Finance smart contracts (ControllerV3 scope).
20 October 2020
Haechi completes a security audit of Pickle Finance smart contracts (ControllerV3 scope).
23 October 2020
ControllerV4 and the swapExactJarForJar function are deployed to production without undergoing a security audit.
21 November 2020
Attacker exploits three chained vulnerabilities in ControllerV4 and drains 19,759,355 DAI from the pDAI PickleJar in the Evil Jar Attack. PICKLE token falls approximately 50%.
22 November 2020
Pickle Finance executes an emergency timelock transaction at 15:15 UTC to revoke the exploited proxy logic from the Controller. White-hat team secures remaining $50 million in assets. Official postmortem published.
24 November 2020
Yearn Finance announces merger with Pickle Finance, characterized as DeFi's first M&A deal, without a prior community governance vote from either protocol.
25 November 2020
PICKLE token surges to approximately $27 on merger announcement.
December 2020
Cover Protocol approves Pickle Finance insurance claim; 282,035 DAI paid out, covering less than 2% of total losses.
December 2020
Developers 0xPenguin and BigBrainBriner depart Pickle Finance.
9 February 2021
PICKLE token reaches all-time high of approximately $34.35 before entering a sustained decline.
2021
Stolen funds from the November 2020 exploit are laundered through Tornado Cash in batches of 100 ETH; total of 1,800 ETH moved through the mixer according to PeckShieldAlert.
2022
Bear market conditions sharply reduce Pickle Finance TVL and user activity; the protocol struggles to compete in the saturated yield aggregator market.
10 June 2025
Pickle Finance takes a snapshot of PICKLE and DILL holders for treasury distribution eligibility (minimum 300 PICKLE required).
October 2025
Pickle Finance UI is disabled. Protocol officially sunsets after approximately five years. Remaining 170,280 USDC treasury distributed to eligible token holders.
Decision Log
- hash: 8eS5SHjcgNyw1WqKAr9imkuHWNi9n8kdrMGLBjbLebrY
- hash: 4sT1etCPEs3F3k1QFifCdxAu1WFZyqZDB33P7ScWYPwR
- hash: EWLoPrSpYZSUdHTwo19Si4WRmX7cMwRBhc3B2gptBCL6
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (3 events). 17 of 26 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 5/4/2026, 2:54:59 AM
last updated: 9/2/2026, 12:39:37 AM
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