A chronological walkthrough of Ascendex Hack & GTH Token Contract Pause

On December 12th, Ascendex was hacked, and the hacker stole various tokens including GTH and the GTH token contract was paused as soon as possible. They informed us that their hot wallets were compromised. 8 Million GTH was moved from AscendEx to the hacker’s wallet.

After deliberating internally on the same day, at 12: 41 PM GMT +4 all token transfers have been paused. We had taken this measure as the hacker had not moved the stolen $GTH. We then did an internal strategy to move forward with a token redeployment method, keeping that in mind other exchanges had been notified about the paused contract and were informed about the hacker’s wallet to have it blacklisted.

On December 14th, we had a meeting with Ascendex for further damage control/reimbursements and then revealed the strategy of token redeployment and moved with the next steps.

On December 18th, for the users who are in the LP pool, a blog post was announced with all the instructions

A new contract was written, termed the LP recovery contract. This contract will only be accessed by LP multi-signature wallets & will allow Gather to withdraw tokens and optionally automatically re-deploy them to the new ETH Pool.

GTH Token Holders won’t have to claim or swap, Gather will Airdrop all tokens to existing holders.

By December 25th, 89.4% of Liquidity Providers successfully moved their existing LP tokens to two multi-signature contracts. A new deadline was announced of January 31st for the rest of the liquidity providers who have missed the first deadline, only with the removal option.

The main contract will be redeployed with the addition of a blacklisting function and making the contract upgradeable. In light of this event, we have engaged two different external security specialists to audit and periodically try to breach and conduct regular scans, all audits went smoothly in the last week of 2021 and are still ongoing.

Post the swaps and deployments, the original contract will remain frozen, hence leaving the hacker with no options to liquidate the stolen tokens.

BSC bridge will be launched following the days right after the redeployment along with other major updates. We have termed this redeployment date as D Day. D-Day is defined as redeployment & the launch of a new liquidity pool. Expect updates to happen in the next few days after go-live.

There will Also be LP Incentives for the BSC pool as well. All in all, even though the hack was unfortunate, we have been able to mitigate any loss of funds by freezing the contract.

FAQ

Can I send/receive GTH?

No, you can’t send or receive until the new GTH token contract is created and announced as the existing token contract is on pause since the Ascendex hack.

Can I trade GTH on Uniswap?

No, you can’t trade until the new GTH token contract is created and announced as the existing token contract is on pause since the Ascendex hack.

Can I trade GTH on central exchanges (Ascendex, Gate, Bithumb Global, Hoo)?

You cannot deposit or withdraw tokens to/from centralized exchanges as the token contract is on pause.

However, you can trade GTH within the centralized exchange.

I have my GTH tokens in Metamask, Trustwallet, Coinbase wallet, or similar. Do I have to do anything?

You don’t need to do anything, Gather will Airdrop all-new tokens to the existing holders. GTH Token Holders won’t have to claim or swap.

I have my GTH tokens in an exchange wallet. Do I have to do anything?

You don’t need to do anything, Gather will Airdrop all-new tokens to the existing holders, including exchanges. Exchanges will update the contract and operations will continue after. GTH Token Holders won’t have to claim or swap.

I haven’t received Ascendex staking rewards for x days. Do I have to do anything?

You don’t need to do anything. Since the GTH token contract is on pause, we are not able to refill the staking pool. After the new GTH token contract is created, the staking pool will be refilled and the rewards will be received by then.

I haven’t received LP incentive program rewards since the hack. Do I have to do anything?

You don’t need to do anything. Since the GTH token contract is on pause, we are not able to send rewards. After the new GTH token contract is created, accumulated rewards will be sent.

• Those who have sent their LP tokens to redeploy on the new GTH-ETH pool will receive deferred rewards for the whole silent period after the hack in new GTH tokens.
• Those who have sent their LP tokens to remove from the existing GTH-ETH pool will receive deferred rewards till the 25th of December in new GTH tokens.
• Liquidity providers who contributed to the existing ETH-GTH pool, and have not taken any action to send their LP tokens to be rescued till now, will need to follow steps in the guide to send their LP tokens till the 31st of January (see the guide: https://bit.ly/LP_Update_January2022). After the 31st of January, when the tokens are rescued, they will receive deferred rewards till the 25th of December in new GTH tokens.

What happens if Liquidity Providers in the old liquidity pool miss the 31st of January deadline to send their LP tokens?

They will be subject to a longer deadline following the bulk rescue operation on the 31st of January. Ie. Another bulk operation will be planned for the end of March (to be reconfirmed through announcements).

What percentage of the existing Uniswap liquidity pool has been saved to date?

89.4% of Liquidity Providers successfully moved their existing LP tokens to two multi-signature contracts.

+ 81.77% will be redeployed (~1.76 Million USD)

+ 7.62% will be removed (~0.16 Million USD)

+ 10.6% of the existing pool is still awaiting actions from latecomers (this liquidity will be removed after latecomers send their LP tokens — see the guide: https://bit.ly/LP_Update_January2022)

I haven’t received masternode rewards since the hack. Do I have to do anything?

You don’t need to do anything. Since the GTH token contract is on pause, we are not able to send rewards. After the new GTH token contract is created, accumulated rewards will be sent for masternode holders.

Can I buy/bid/sell Masternode NFTs?

Yes, you can. Gather Masternode NFT contract is a separate contract and not linked with the GTH token contract.

When will the new token contract be live?

As soon as the audits are complete.

Why is it taking long to create the new token contract, are there new features?

Yes, new features such as blacklisting an address or making the contract upgradeable are already added, and the audits are ongoing. These features will allow us to handle similar situations faster in the future if repeated.

What happened to the BSC bridge?

BSC bridge will be launched after the new token GTH ERC20 contract is live. The new token contract with the added features will also be used for the GTH BEP20 token (BSC version of the GTH).