The US Department of Justice has filed charges against an alleged crypto hacker, who it claims stole $65 million in cryptocurrency, starting when he was just 18 years old.
The now 22-year-old Andean Medjedovic faces five charges, linked to an indictment. The focus of these charges is for allegedly «stealing approximately $65 million in cryptocurrency from the KyberSwap and Indexed Finance decentralised finance (DeFi) protocols».
The first hack, in relation to Indexed Finance, involved a systemic vulnerability. Effectively, Indexed Finances managed to cut out many of the middle management fees from trades with built-in regulatory systems, and this reduced overhead partially led to its renown.
However, that also appeared to be its fault. Indexed Finance is monitored with a complex system of checks and balances by adjusting pool prices and liquidity (the cost and size of the digital market that users can purchase) for its crypto funds to incentivise or disincentive users from trading.
As pointed out in Bloomberg's investigation of Indexed Finance in 2022, «This model assumed users would interact rationally with the protocol, buying low and selling high».