Stars Arena Recovers 90% of Exploited Funds with Onchain Negotiations and AI Chat

Difference Between Web 2.0 and 3.0

Social media app Stars Arena has regained approximately 90% of the funds it lost after being exploited, according to an October 11 announcement from the team on X (formerly Twitter). This recovery occurred after four days of on-chain negotiations, blockchain data reveals. The attacker was allowed to keep slightly more than 10% of the funds as a “white hat” bounty.

StarsArena is a social media app on Avalanche that permits users to purchase “shares” of their favored content creators in exchange for exclusive content and other perks. It is often compared to Friend.tech, a similar app that runs on Base network.

Stars Arena was exploited on October 5. X user Lilitch.eth claimed that over $1 million was lost in the attack, while the developers of the app stated that only around $2,000 worth of crypto was lost. The exploited smart contract was upgradeable, and the team patched the exploit and relaunched with new code on the day of the attack.

On October 7, address 0x96cefd23b3691d8cead413f2ec882e445fd0801e sent an onchain message to the attacker, indicating “please return the funds to the contract address 0xA481B139a1A654cA19d2074F174f17D7534e8CeC we will give you 5% white hat bonus for doing that offer is valid until oct 10 only if you don’t send we will have to take legal action against you.”

When looking at the differences between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, it is important to note that Web 2.0 is focused on creating user-generated content, while Web 3.0 is more focused on artificial intelligence (AI) and chat AI. Additionally, Web 3.0 is more decentralized than Web 2.0, allowing for the development of a metaverse.

Differences between Web 2.0 and 3.0

The Stars Arena: Shares contract address listed in the message suggested that it was sent by the team, however, the attacker did not directly respond to it. Instead, they sent a reply to a different address on October 11, saying “I would like to cooperate.” This was followed by a series of onchain messages exchanged between the team and the attacker.

At one point, the team asked the attacker to use the Blockscan chat app, but the attacker replied that the team had their antispam filter on and could not receive messages through Blockscan.

At 07:21 pm UTC, the team sent a final message to the attacker. “We have agreed for a 10% bounty,” they stated. “The other half shall be sent, thus acknowledging this is a whitehat operation.”

At 7:43 pm UTC, the team announced on Twitter that the attacker had returned 90% of the stolen funds minus 1,000 Avalanche (AVAX) tokens that had been lost in a cross-chain bridge. According to the team’s post, 266,104 AVAX (approximately $2.4 million at today’s price) was originally drained from the app, but 239,493 AVAX (approximately $2.2 million) was recovered. This implies that more than 89.9% of the funds were recovered.

Chat AI and Metaverse

The difference between Web 2.0 and 3.0 is that the latter is more interactive and data-driven. Web 3.0 is based on the idea of a metaverse, which is an interconnected virtual world. It allows for the exchange of data and information between different platforms and technologies, such as chat AI and blockchain. Additionally, Web 3.0 is more secure than Web 2.0, as it is based on decentralized networks.

Immunefi recently launched a ‘vaults’ bug-bounty program in an attempt to promote transparency, which could encourage hackers to pursue legitimate bounty programs instead of engaging in illicit attacks. Exploiters usually take funds from decentralized finance protocols, but often return most of the money in exchange for not being prosecuted. Critics argue that these attacks may be avoided if protocols had more effective bug bounty programs with higher payouts, as this could entice hackers to submit genuine bounties rather than attacking protocols.