The Rollercoaster Ride of HAY: How Helio and Ankr Handle Bad Debt and Exploits

What Happened? A Perfect Storm of Exploits

On December 2, 2022, chaos erupted in the blockchain world when a hacker found a way to exploit vulnerabilities in Ankr’s smart contract after a technical upgrade. The result? A whopping 20 trillion Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB (aBNBc) was minted and promptly dumped, causing its price to plummet from about $300 to less than $2. It was like watching the Titanic go down, except with more zeros involved.

The Gritty Details of the Exploit

While traders were wading through the wreckage, one crafty individual seized an interesting opportunity. They took advantage of some hard-coding shenanigans between aBNBc and BNB on Helio Protocol to borrow a staggering 16 million HAY by using just 10 BNB as collateral. With math skills that would make Pythagoras proud, this trader ended up swapping the HAY for 15.5 million Binance USD (BUSD), pocketing a profit that can only be described as astronomical – a dizzying 5,209 times their original investment!

Helio’s Heroic Response to Stabilizing HAY

In the days following the chaos, Helio Protocol sprang into action. According to a tweet on December 7, they had bought back $3 million worth of bad HAY debt in the open market. Talk about getting back on the horse! Shortly after, they announced efforts to stabilize HAY’s peg, aiming for a smooth recovery by December 6, when they hoped it would inch back towards that golden $1 mark.

All Systems Go for Ankr’s Recovery Plan

Meanwhile, Ankr didn’t sit idly by. They committed $15 million to tackle the bad debt that had emerged as a result of their unfortunate exploit. Picture it like a superhero team-up: Helio swoops in to stabilize, while Ankr provides the financial muscle to clean up the aftermath.

A Market in Turmoil Rebounds

Despite HAY facing its own share of turbulence, with its value dipping to as low as $0.20 post-exploit, it made a commendable recovery, trading back at around $0.96 at the time of publication. The Helio Protocol claimed their strategy would involve repurchasing excess HAY and sending it to burn – a move reminiscent of the mythical phoenix rising from the ashes. However, traders and investors are left wondering: How can they ensure that this rollercoaster ride doesn’t happen again?