DeFi user reports phishing of 500k USDC on Base; attacker's subsequent slippage-heavy swap on Uniswap V4 created arbitrage captured by a bot for 23.87 WETH, with victim seeking recovery via 20% bounty offer.
Security & Exploits ·
A wallet on Base became the subject of a recovery plea after being phished for approximately 500,000 USDC on August 6, 2026. The attacker then swapped the stolen funds for roughly 67 WETH on a Uniswap V4 pool, incurring a loss of approximately 370,000 USDC due to absent slippage protections and shallow liquidity. The transaction created a pricing anomaly that enabled a bot to capture an arbitrage opportunity, realizing 23.8699 WETH in profit from the same block.
The victim, whose address is documented on BaseScan, claims to have identified the attacker and notified law enforcement. A second searcher who back-ran the Uniswap pool in that block has already voluntarily returned 133.33 ETH to the victim's address while retaining 20 percent as an unrequested bounty. The victim is now appealing directly to the bot operator for the return of the phishing-sourced funds, offering the same 20 percent bounty as incentive.
It remains unclear whether the bot operator will respond to the recovery proposal or whether the victim's law enforcement involvement will yield actionable recovery through conventional channels. The address hosting the appeal has published contact information for negotiation but has not announced whether it has received replies.