On September 2023, HCT suffered a price manipulation — the first of 85 documented price manipulation incidents in our archive where the loss figure was not publicly disclosed but the exploit pattern is documented below.
Attack Mechanics: How the HCT Price Manipulation Played Out
Exploit Class Applied to HCT
The HCT incident on September 7, 2023 is classified as a Price Manipulation. The attacker drives the on-chain price of a token up or down within a single transaction to extract value from the protocol. In the full archive, HCT is 1 of 85 documented price manipulation incidents.
HCT in Context
The HCT incident joins a class whose largest loss to date is CreamFinance (2021) at $130M.
Prior Price Manipulation Before HCT
The nearest price manipulation incident before HCT was EAC, 9 days earlier on August 29, 2023. The same exploit class surfaced again within the price manipulation attack surface.
Impact & Recovery for HCT
HCT Loss Figure
The loss figure for HCT is not publicly disclosed. The primary source reports the exploit in non-USD terms, so no USD estimate is published here. For reference, the average loss across 85 price manipulation incidents in our archive is $3.9M.
Timeline Since the HCT Incident
The HCT exploit occurred 2.6 years ago (950 days). The contract, its fork-block, and the attack transaction remain on-chain and forensically reproducible.
Primary Reference for HCT
Public post-mortem / on-chain analysis for the HCT incident: view source.
FAQ
How much did HCT lose?
The HCT loss figure is not publicly disclosed. The primary source reports the exploit in non-USD token terms, so no USD estimate is published here.
When did the HCT hack happen?
The HCT exploit was recorded on September 7, 2023 — 950 days ago.
What type of exploit hit HCT?
The HCT incident is classified as a Price Manipulation. The attacker drives the on-chain price of a token up or down within a single transaction to extract value from the protocol.
How common is the Price Manipulation pattern seen at HCT?
Our archive contains 85 documented price manipulation incidents. The HCT incident is one of them.
How does HCT compare to the largest Price Manipulation attack?
The largest price manipulation incident in our archive is CreamFinance (2021) at $130M. The HCT loss was not publicly disclosed.
What was a key finding regarding older cryptocurrencies?
Older cryptocurrencies' long-term volatility is sensitive to structural breaks in exogenous variables.
What future research directions does the study propose?
Exploring more advanced AI algorithms for predictive auditing and further refining the blockchain framework to better handle the complexities of cloud manufacturing.