what's Cork Protocol?
Cork Protocol is a decentralized finance (DeFi) platform that introduces Depeg Swaps, a novel primitive similar to credit default swaps for managing the risk of pegged crypto assets such as liquid staking tokens (LSTs), liquid restaking tokens (LRTs), stablecoins, and real-world assets (RWAs). At its core, the protocol operates through markets structured as token pairs, consisting of a redemption asset (e.g., ETH) and a pegged asset (e.g., stETH). Each market has a fixed time to expiry and utilizes a Peg Stability Module to mint Depeg Swaps and Cover Tokens. Traders can buy Depeg Swaps to hedge against potential depegs or Cover Tokens to earn yield if the peg holds. Liquidity is managed via an Automated Market Maker on Uniswap v4, enabling efficient pricing and trading of depeg risk.
Cork Protocol raised $5.5M in seed funding led by CSX and a16z.
Links
x.com/corkprotocolPartnered with Mona_El_Isa to curate vaults combining TradFi and DeFi use cases.
Raised $5.5 million in seed funding round led by CSX and a16z.
Integrates with Agglayer's Vault Bridge to provide liquidity buffers that enable immediate withdrawals from Katana and other AggChains during high utilization or market stress periods.
Protocol has re-launched following the security incidents that led to contract pauses in May.
Cork Protocol contributes to Devconnect event recommendations, demonstrating continued community engagement at major Ethereum conference alongside Bankless and other projects.
Protocol receives external support for security strengthening and enters new chapter following the hack.
Exploit investigation evolves into audit firm controversy as hacker provides technical analysis on-chain.
Second exploiter transfers 4,520 ETH ($11M) to Tornado Cash and donates 10 ETH to Tornado Cash developers' legal fund.
Second exploiter transfers 1,410 ETH ($3.4M) to Tornado Cash.
Hacker moves $11.6M ETH to new address while targeting audit firms with on-chain messages, specifically calling out Sherlock's missed vulnerability.
Exploiter moves 4,530 ETH ($11.4M) of stolen funds to new wallet address 0xFC0A...CDff4
Hack losses increase to $15M; audit firm's insurance coverage faces payment complications
New security breach detected; all protocol contracts paused pending investigation.
Protocol experiences $10M+ hack confirmed by Slowmist; all contracts paused and investigation launched by team.
Suffered $12M exploit on 2025-05-28 via malicious contract deployment, due to time-based pricing vulnerability and missing access control in its Uniswap v4 hook, with 3,761.87 wstETH converted to ETH.
New DeFi protocol for tokenizing depeg risk launches on Ethereum mainnet.