UMA Oracle Gets Owned by Rogue Actor 🤣
What to know:
- An Ethereum wallet user, ‘BornTooLate.Eth’, has manipulated the outcome of a Ukraine-themed contract on UMA, a decision-making oracle used by Polymarket, by becoming one of the largest holders of UMA tokens.
- Despite the significant influence, the attack did not result in substantial profits or losses, with the largest winner and loser from the contract gaining and losing around $55,000 and $73,000 respectively.
- Polymarket has stated that no refunds will be issued as this is not considered a ‘market failure’, and is working with the UMA oracle team to prevent similar incidents in the future.
A rogue actor operating from an Ethereum wallet ‘BornTooLate.Eth’ has engaged in a governance attack on UMA, a decision-making oracle used by Polymarket, to attack the outcome of a Ukraine-themed contract by becoming one of the largest holders of UMA tokens. And honestly, what’s the point of even calling it a ‘rogue actor’ when you’re just a fancy name for ‘person who can’t be bothered to do their taxes’?
UMA is a decentralized “optimistic” oracle protocol that resolves disputes in prediction markets by allowing UMA token holders to vote on contentious outcomes. It’s like a big group chat where everyone gets to decide what’s true, except instead of just arguing about who ate the last slice of pizza, you’re deciding the fate of the world. Or at least, that’s what I imagine.
On-chain data shows that BornTooLate.eth has approximately 1.3 million UMA tokens, making them a top-5 governance staker and giving them significant sway over the resolution of UMA disputes. Which is just a fancy way of saying they have a lot of tokens and can do whatever they want.
In the case of this Ukraine-themed market that was attacked, the contract asked bettors to speculate on the possibility of a deal being signed involving U.S. access to the country’s rate earth resources by the end of March. Because, you know, that’s exactly what the world needs: more rate earth resources.
A deal is in the works, reports say, but nothing has been signed. And yet on Polymarket, it resolved to ‘yes’ after BornTooLate.Eth used his staked UMA tokens to vote ‘yes’ on the resolution. Because who needs actual news when you have a token holder with a lot of sway?
A Very Unprofitable Trading Strategy 🤦♀️
Curiously, this attack doesn’t seem to have netted a large payday for any of the participants. I mean, what’s the point of hacking into a system if you’re not going to get rich off of it?
Market data from on-chain curator Polymarket Analytics shows that the largest winner from the contract took home just over $55,000. Which is, like, barely enough to cover the cost of a decent dinner.
Likewise, the losses were quite moderate compared to other closely-watched Polymarket contracts with the biggest loser forfeiting around $73,000. Which is, like, a whole lot of money, but not enough to buy a decent house.
An etherscan page for BornTooLate.Eth shows that the actor began accumulating UMA tokens over a year ago. Given their holdings of over 1.3 million tokens, building that sort of treasury for the attack would have cost over $2 million. Which is, like, a whole lot of money. But hey, at least they have a lot of tokens now.
For its part, Polymarket says no refunds will be issued because this isn’t a “market failure” and said in a statement on Discord it is working with the UMA oracle team to prevent it from happening again. Because, you know, that’s exactly what they should be doing: working to prevent people from getting rich off of their system.
“This market resolved against the expectations of our users and our clarification,” a spokesperson posted on Discord. “We’re committed to building the future of prediction markets, which requires building resilient systems in which everyone can trust.” Yeah, because that’s exactly what we need: more prediction markets where everyone can trust each other. Said no one ever.
Polymarket founder Shayne Coplan didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Which is, like, totally fine, because who needs to respond to comments when you have a fancy statement on Discord?
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2025-03-26 13:35