NORMIE Coin Plummets After Suspected Insider Exploit

The cryptocurrency world witnessed a dramatic plunge as NORMIE, a memecoin on the Ethereum layer 2 network Base, saw its value drop by 99% within minutes. This severe drop resulted from an exploit that drastically inflated the token’s supply, erasing $40 million from its market cap.

The incident was dissected by a pseudonymous crypto trader and developer known as “@ProfoundWatcher” on X. The analysis pointed to a critical flaw in the Normie smart contract, which was exploited to mint millions of extra tokens. Shockingly, the exploiter was able to purchase 5 million tokens, assign the necessary permissions to themselves, and use a flash loan to continuously fund the contract account, ultimately draining it.

The presence of such a critical vulnerability led many to speculate about the origins of the flaw, with the conversation leaning towards an inside job. When asked about this possibility, @ProfoundWatcher responded that it was “almost certain it’s someone involved with the team or whoever wrote the contract,” unless it was derived from another project’s fork.

Amidst the chaos, the official X account for Normie was suspended, though its website remained operational. Adding to the intrigue, the centralized crypto exchange L Bank reported an influx of NORMIE tokens potentially linked to the exploit.

In an unexpected turn of events, encoded messages in blockchain transactions revealed that the exploiter reached out to the project’s deployer wallet, proposing to return 90% of the exploited funds under the condition that the team allocate 600 ETH from the developer wallet to launch a new token fairly, compensating the affected holders.

The Normie team, prior to the suspension of their X account, publicly accepted the exploiter’s terms, stating, “Exploiter, we accept your offer to return 90% of the exploited ETH. You may keep 10%, no reprisals. All ETH from the normie dev wallet will be used to rectify this situation and assist our relaunch.”

Launched in March, Normie had previously achieved a peak market cap of $130 million on April 2, as reported by Coingecko. The project’s ethos, as advertised on its website, targeted mainstream users with promises of “no taxes, no rugpulling, no bullsh–,” making the exploit particularly ironic and damaging.

The Normie incident underscores the vital importance of robust security measures and the potential vulnerabilities within the crypto space, especially concerning insider threats. The community’s response and the project’s future steps will be closely watched as they attempt to recover and regain trust.