The Normie (NORMIE) team, creators of the Base memecoin, is currently in talks with the hacker responsible for stealing funds due to a smart contract vulnerability. This incident caused a significant drop in the token’s market cap, amounting to $41.7 million in less than three hours.
Lookonchain, a blockchain analytics firm, was among the first to identify the exploit and the hacker’s offer. The hacker communicated their offer to Normie’s deployer address through an on-chain message on May 26.
Reportedly, Normie agreed to the hacker’s proposal of returning 90% of the stolen NORMIE tokens. However, the price of the token has already plummeted by 96% since the exploit. The condition for the return of the stolen funds is that Normie utilizes these funds, along with the $2.3 million in their team’s dev wallet, to launch a new token in order to compensate NORMIE holders. Additionally, the hacker requested that no retaliatory actions be taken against them, as mentioned in another on-chain message.
Normie’s team acknowledged the need for a re-launch, stating, “We will have to re-launch, yes.” This statement was made on a new X account that the team apparently created after their main account was suspended. Normie expressed their intention to recover their main Twitter account and the funds from the exploiter before proceeding with the re-launch. However, the temporary account was also suspended shortly after.
The hacker remains firm on their conditions, insisting that the token re-launch must occur before the funds are returned.
According to “Dinho,” one of the administrators of the official NORMIE Telegram group, it is uncertain when NORMIE token holders will be able to retrieve their stolen funds. Dinho’s X account has also been suspended.
The price of NORMIE experienced a rapid decline on May 26, starting at 3:55 am UTC. Within just one hour, the price plummeted by over 92% to $0.0032, as reported by CoinGecko. It further dropped to 99.5% after two and a half hours. Although there was a brief price spike to $0.019, the price continued to decline and currently stands at $0.0016, marking a 96% decrease.
The market cap of NORMIE reached its lowest point at $200,000 after falling from $41.9 million. However, there has been a slight recovery since then.
According to Quick Intel, a blockchain scam detection tool, approximately 72,000 NORMIE holders were affected by the smart contract vulnerability, which was discovered in March.
The exact amount of funds stolen in this incident remains unclear.
NORMIE was launched on Base during the recent memecoin craze in March 2024 and reached a peak market cap of $130 million on April 2, as reported by CoinGecko.
A recent investigation by Cointelegraph revealed that 91% of Base memecoins have vulnerabilities that could potentially result in significant losses for users.
In light of these events, the question arises as to whether crypto projects should engage in negotiations with hackers.