The Normie Memecoin Hack: Everything You Need to Know

The meme coin Normie (NORMIE), built on Ethereum's Layer 2 network Base, fell victim to a sophisticated attack targeting a vulnerability in its smart contract's tax function. This exploit allowed the attacker to manipulate Normie's total supply, effectively draining its liquidity pools. 

Within a few hours, Normie's market capitalization plummeted from a healthy $42 million to a meager $100,000 at its lowest point. 

The attacker's actions caused widespread panic, with many investors witnessing their holdings diminish to almost nothing.

The Attacker’s Unprecedented Offer

In an unexpected turn, the attacker reached out to Normie's deployer address with an offer to return 90% of the stolen funds. The condition set by the attacker was that the Normie team would launch a new project to reimburse NORMIE holders. 

The attacker proposed keeping 10% of the stolen funds as a bug bounty, on the condition of no reprisals. This proposal was made through an on-chain message, which stated:

“I offer to return 90% of the exploited ETH, keeping 10% as a bug bounty (with no reprisals). One condition: it, and the 600 ETH in the dev wallet, are used to fairly launch a new token that is used to reimburse NORMIE holders.”

600 ether is worth nearly $2.3 million at current prices. 

Faced with the significant loss of funds and a plummeting token value, the Normie team decided to accept the attacker's terms. They communicated their intentions through a new X account, as their main account had been suspended. 

The team announced:

“We will have to re-launch, yes. That will come after we get our main Twitter account back and after we get the funds from the exploiter.”

The temporary account used to make this announcement was also suspended shortly after. The team planned to use the returned funds and $2.3 million from their development wallet to launch a new token. 

Insights from the Attacker

In another on-chain message, the attacker criticized Normie's contract code, calling it a "copy-paste job" likely not thoroughly reviewed by its developers before being pushed live. The attacker elaborated:

“This exact code is present in a number of other token contracts, a few of which significantly pre-date Normie. Most meme tokens are simply copy-paste jobs from the same small set of contracts, all with over-complicated tax logic in the transfer function. I suspect this is simply a case of them re-using code they didn't thoroughly review.”

Before the exploit, NORMIE was among the top meme coins on Base, with a market capitalization of over $40 million and nearly 90,000 on-chain token holders. Normie, slang for a “normal person,” was modeled after a blue-colored frog resembling the popular Pepe the Frog character. 

An Unfortunate Investor’s Loss

Amid the turmoil, an unfortunate trader lost over $1 million worth of digital assets following the Normie memecoin exploit. 

The trader had invested $1.16 million to buy 11.23 million NORMIE tokens at $0.1035 each between March 25 and April 9, holding them until the exploit. After the attack, the value of his holdings fell over 99% to just $150.