OptiFi’s Developer Error Leads to $661K Locked In The Platform

OptiFi, a Solana-based decentralized options exchange, has accidentally shut its mainnet program and locked around $661,000 in user funds.  

According to the official report shared on August 30th, the incident happened when OptiFi's developer was attempting to update the company's program on the Solana mainnet. 

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The company notes that the update took longer than expected to install. Therefore, the developers decided to cancel the upgrade. However, it was already too late. During the processing of the update, a new buffer account was created, and a part of OptiFi's tokens were transferred into that account. 

The company attempted to reverse this action by using the command "Solana program close". In its report, OptiFi noted:

Here it turned out that we didn’t really understand the impact and risk of this closing program command line. ‘Solana program close’ is actually for closing the program permanently and sending the SOL tokens in the buffer account used by the program back to the recipient wallet.

After using the command, the company has permanently closed its program, which cannot be deployed “unless a new program id is used”.

OptiFi has promised to compensate all users who have lost their funds due to this mistake. However, they noted that around 95% of locked 661,000 USD Coins (USDC) are owned by one of the OptiFi team members.

At the end of its report, the company highlighted that it has learned from its mistakes and will take additional steps to ensure that it doesn't happen again. OptiFi says it will employ a peer-surveillance approach, where at least 3 people are overlooking the deployment process. 

Moreover, the company warns other developers working on the Solana blockchain to be aware of such consequences and asks Solana’s development community to bring a multiple-step confirmation process for the "Solana program close" command. 

Gile K., Market Sentiment Analyst

Gile is a Market Sentiment Analyst who understands what public events may form what emotions. Her experience researching Web3 news and public market messages – including cryptocurrency news reports, PRs, and social network streams – is critical to her role in helping lead the Crypto News Editorial Team.
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