After the token fell 99%, the Normie memecoin team presents hacker requests
The team behind the base memecoin Normie (NORMIE) is negotiating with the hacker to return 90% of the money stolen due to the smart contract vulnerability – about $41.7 million in token marketplaces that crashed in less than three hours.
Blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain was one of the first to report the exploit and the hacker's supply in a chain message sent to Normi's distributor address on May 26.
It was later reported that Normie had accepted the hacker's offer to recover 90% of the stolen NORMIE tokens – even though the price had already been reduced by 96% from the exploit – Normie was in a position to launch the service using the stolen funds and the $2.3 million in the team's Div wallet. New token payment for NORMIE holders.
In another message on the chain, the hacker requested no retaliation.
“We have to relaunch, yes,” said Noormi's team on the new X account he created after the original was banned.
“This comes after we get our main Twitter account back and recover the money from the exploiter,” Normi said at the time – although the temporary account was suspended soon after.
But the hacker has doubled down on their strict conditions by ensuring that a token reset must occur before the funds can be returned.
“Dave's wallet has done more than I did during this exploit, and I have no other way to make sure those funds are put to good use.”
“Dinho, one of the administrators of the official NORMIE Telegram group, could not confirm when NORMIE token holders will be able to recover their stolen funds. Dinho X's account has also been suspended.
NORMIE's price began to decline on May 26 at 3:55 am UTC, dropping more than 92% in one hour to $0.0032, according to CoinGecko. After two and a half, it dropped to 99.5%
Apart from a short-lived price rally to $0.019, the price has continued to decline to $0.0016 at the time of writing, representing a 96% decline.
It fell to $200,000 from its $41.9 million market cap, but has since recovered slightly.
Related: $20M Exploit Sonne Finance Disabled, Hacker in No Sense of Negotiation
Fast Intel, the group behind the blockchain hacking tool, said 72,000 NORMIE holders were affected by a smart contract vulnerability discovered in March.
It is unclear how much money was stolen in the crash.
NORMIE was launched during the recent memecoin mania on March 2024, reaching a peak market cap of $130 million on April 2, according to CoinGecko.
A recent investigation from Cointelegraph found that 91% of Base memecoins have vulnerabilities that could expose users to huge losses.
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