INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
This weeks fiasco occurred on Compound, one of several DeFi platforms.A bug in a recent update of decentralized finance platform Compound
sent users nearly $90-million-worth of cryptocurrency in error, leaving its creator's CEO begging users to voluntarily send it back.The
glitch is a black eye for cryptocurrency platforms hoping to upend the traditional finance system
governed completely by computer code
code, rather than fallible humans, governs the system.But critics note that when the code has contained mistakes, it's led to disasters
been a critic of many crypto projects
A closely watched crypto project blacked out for hours last month
In August, a hacker exploited a vulnerability in another DeFi project to take around $600-million worth of tokens which the hacker later
Unlike similar platforms run by companies such as BlockFi Inc., Compound isn't run by a central company but rather by a distributed network
of users utilizing smart contracts
Compound also distributes a token, called COMP, that gives users a say in how the protocol works and whose price on Friday was about $319
per coin.The trouble started Wednesday, when users approved an update to Compound's platform that contained a bug
Chief Executive Officer Robert Leshner on Twitter said the bug caused too much COMP to go to some users
But since the platform is decentralized and requires a waiting period, neither his company nor anyone else had the ability to pause
distribution of the tokens.Leshner said the impact was limited to 280,000 COMP tokens, which on Friday were worth about $89.3 million.In an
interview, Leshner said the mistake shows that Compound's protocol needs to have a lengthier review process and more community developers
said.After Compound users claimed the erroneous tokens, Leshner on Twitter threatened to reveal their identities to the Internal Revenue
Service if they didn't return most of them
does show that DeFi probably needs to find a way to increase user protection before getting widespread adoption, said Kevin Werbach,
