Trader exploits Multichain opening to turn $280K to $1.9M; community suspects insider job

A wallet address turned nearly 1.9 million Fantom (FTM) worth $280,000 to $1.9 million within hours of exploiting the long-frozen Multichain Bridge opening momentarily, leading to insider job speculations among the crypto community.

The Multichain Bridge, frozen since its exploit in July 2023, opened momentarily and closed again on Nov. 1. The wallet seized the opportunity of the momentarily opened bridge to make millions of dollars in profits.

looks like someone was able to drain ~$1MM from @MultichainOrg in the last ~3 hours even though it’s supposed to be frozen

withdrew 1.2MM $FTM from binance on @FantomFDN traded for multichain WBTC/ETH/USDTbridged out and deposited back to binancehttps://t.co/pP5GluGUH1 pic.twitter.com/AbUJVQBmds

— devops199fan ⌐◨-◨ (@devops199fan) November 1, 2023

Several depegged assets, such as Wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), cost less on the Fantom network than their originals on the Ethereum network. The wallet used the momentarily opening to swap their FTM tokens for depegged assets on the Fantom network and transfer them to the Ethereum network, regaining their total value.

The wallet address starting from 0x4372 first withdrew 1.9 million FTM tokens from Binance and swapped them for Bitcoin (BTC) on the Fantom Network and then used the BTC for a cross-chain transfer through the Multichain Bridge to Ethereum and received 28.4 wBTC ($977,000), 357 Ether (ETH) ($642,000) and 298,000 Tether (USDT).

The wallet address later bridged out the assets and transferred them to Binance. However, more than the wallet address in question, the crypto community was focused on the “Multichain executor.”

Multichain Fantom bridge was exploited for over $126 million in July earlier this year; at the time, several ERC-20 assets — 7,214 Wrapped Ether (wETH) tokens worth $13.6 million, 1,024 wBTC worth $31 million and $58 million worth of USD Coin (USDC) — were drained.

Related: Poly Network urges users to withdraw after exploit affects 57 crypto assets

Many on X (formerly Twitter) questioned the timing of the trade, claiming it to be an insider job as the wallet was the only beneficiary of the bridge opening. One user wrote that Multichain, which was closed for over 120 days, momentarily opened to execute only these particular transactions benefiting the owner.

This is the thing.

Since the multichain debacle the bridge is closed so it’s not possible to do so

Magically today the bridge reopened so this guy was able to buy BTC for cheap on Fantom and resell it on eth

— CryptoDinduz (@CryptoDinduz) November 1, 2023

0xScope, a Web3 data analytics firm, told Cointelegraph there’s no concrete evidence that suggests an inside job by the trader at this moment.

“Upon inspecting Multichain, we observed that it still has some chains that are operational, such as KCC, Moonriver, and Moonbeam. It is likely that the team behind Multichain is attempting to restart their operations.”

There was no official statement from Fantom Network or Multichain by the time of publication

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