Venus Protocol: $27M Drained via Whale Phishing, Contracts Remain Safe
Venus Protocol, a leading DeFi lending platform on BNB Chain, confirmed its smart contracts are secure after $27 million in crypto assets were drained. PeckShield and the Venus team traced the incident to a phishing attack on a single whale, who unknowingly authorized malicious transactions from a rogue address. Stolen funds, including vUSDC and vETH, were transferred out following the unauthorized approval. Venus Protocol affirmed that no core contract exploit occurred and only the compromised user was affected. The platform’s total value locked (TVL) has previously topped $7 billion, underscoring its significance in DeFi. Developers are now verifying contract integrity and monitoring user safety.
Neutral
The incident stems from a single-user phishing attack rather than a protocol exploit, which preserves overall confidence in Venus Protocol and the BNB Chain DeFi ecosystem. While $27 million in vUSDC and vETH were stolen, the underlying smart contracts remain secure. Historically, similar user-level security breaches (e.g., Uniswap phishing cases) have led to short-term volatility but did not undermine long-term protocol integrity. Traders may see minor fluctuations in Venus-related tokens, but market impact should be limited. In the long term, this event reinforces the importance of user education and wallet security rather than protocol vulnerability, suggesting a neutral market response.