Coinbase Made $1 Million from Curve Finance Attack

A major July attack on the big digital money group, Curve Finance, shook the online finance world. Though a lot of the money was returned, some are still lost out. Coinbase, got about $1 million from this event. Some people think this money is stolen, but Coinbase hasn't returned it.

Here’s why:

After Curve was robbed of $73 million, its system had a short error. A smart trading robot saw a chance to make quick money from this mistake. To make its trade happen faster, it paid 570 ETH ($1.06 million) as fee to a validator which happened to be Coinbase. Even though most of the lost $73 million was found, some say Coinbase should return the $1 million.

Alchemix, another crypto company, says Coinbase is keeping this money even though it's stolen. They spoke to Coinbase, but the company said it doesn't have to give the money back. Alchemix said: “Coinbase got money from the theft and won't return it.”

This event shows a big challenge in the crypto world. When there’s a problem, it's hard for victims to get their money back. About $735 million worth of crypto has been stolen this year. It makes some people scared to use this technology.

The problem started when Curve had a mistake in its code. This allowed a thief to take advantage and steal $73 million. Because of this, a trading robot saw a way to buy a special coin cheaply and then sell it for more.

This way of making quick money from trading opportunities is called MEV (maximal extractable value). The fee to Coinbase was the second biggest MEV ever. Other groups involved, like the robot, returned their profits. But Coinbase has not.

Ogle, an expert in finding stolen crypto, said he talked to Coinbase. But they won't give the money back. They believe they did nothing wrong.