On January 20, 2026, at 8:00 AM UTC+8, the DeFi protocol MakinaFi suffered a contract attack, resulting in the theft of 1,299 ETH, which was approximately 4.13 million USD at the time. As the first DeFi attack of 2026 exceeding 4 million USD in a single incident, this security breach was quickly captured by on-chain security teams and the Chinese community. Initial on-chain data indicated that the stolen funds were transferred to two main aggregation addresses, one controlling approximately 3.3 million USD and the other about 880,000 USD, with the funds having left the original protocol's control. Beyond the conventional contract security vulnerabilities, a MEV Builder address 0xa6c2… appeared in the critical transaction path, making this attack not only a technical intrusion but also touching on the gray area of the MEV mechanism being exploited to amplify risks. The following narrative will track the flow of funds, the boundaries of MEV roles, and the regulatory context to dissect the systemic risks behind this "New Year’s first strike."
The On-Chain Script of 1,299 ETH Being Moved in the Early Morning
On January 20, 2026, on-chain security monitoring first detected abnormal outflows from the MakinaFi contract, with several relatively concentrated transactions withdrawing funds from protocol-related addresses in a short period. Public information has not restored every block height and specific call chain, but it can be confirmed that this series of operations was completed in a very short time, forming a typical "flash loan" trajectory. After the attack transaction was completed, the funds were quickly transferred to two main aggregation addresses: 0xbed2…dE25 and 0x573d…910e, with the former aggregating approximately 3.3 million USD worth of ETH and the latter about 880,000 USD, totaling close to the 1,299 ETH loss reported by PeckShieldAlert and several media outlets. According to reports from Jinse Finance, this amount made the MakinaFi incident the first DeFi attack exceeding 4 million USD in 2026, particularly striking in the relatively calm on-chain security environment at the beginning of the year. A single-source report from PeckShieldAlert indicated that the attack likely exploited a reentrancy vulnerability in the contract, but it is still marked as "pending further verification," with no more detailed technical reports disclosing specific function calls or exploitation links, meaning that external understanding of the event's technical details remains at a preliminary judgment level.
Where Did the Hacker's Money Go After Being Transferred?
From the currently visible on-chain path, the stolen ETH was quickly directed to the aforementioned two aggregation addresses after leaving the MakinaFi contract, forming the first layer of aggregation. The transfer of assets between the attack contract and the aggregation addresses typically involves a series of intermediary wallets, some of which may be one-time "burner" addresses used to obscure direct associations. In the case of MakinaFi, the publicly monitored information can only outline the main route of "from protocol contract to attack execution address, then to two core aggregation addresses," with no further cross-chain or deeply dispersed transfer evidence appearing on-chain. Based on past cases, we can only discuss the general money laundering path framework that hackers might adopt, such as creating transaction noise through multi-layer address transfers, and then continuously splitting and reorganizing fund positions via cross-chain bridges, mixers, or high liquidity DEXs, but these remain at the experiential level and cannot be regarded as a definitive description of the MakinaFi case. Equally important is that, as of now, there are no authoritative channels disclosing substantial progress on freezing funds, exchange assistance in locking, or partial recovery, making discussions around "how much can be recovered" lack reliable basis, thus no responsible predictions on recovery outcomes can be made. Looking back at multiple past DeFi attacks, on-chain tracking often maintains "continuous monitoring" of suspicious funds for a considerable time and can achieve pinpoint strikes with the help of compliance platforms and law enforcement at specific stages, but replicating this experience in the MakinaFi incident still depends on the hacker's subsequent specific on-chain behavior, the depth of collaboration between the project team and security teams, and the acceptance of on-chain evidence and cross-border cooperation by different judicial jurisdictions, all of which remain unclear.
When the MEV Builder Walks into the Scene of the Security Incident
In the execution sequence of transactions related to the MakinaFi attack, the appearance of the MEV Builder address 0xa6c2… became a major focus of public attention. On-chain information shows that this address played a role similar to "front-running" or "priority packing" near key attack transactions, with its intervention appearing superficially similar to common MEV arbitrage and liquidation front-running: by controlling the order of transactions, it captured profitable opportunities during the block construction phase and arranged its transactions in a more favorable position. From a mechanism perspective, the basic logic of MEV still revolves around packaging and ordering rights: once a transaction reveals a significant price deviation, liquidation space, or state change (including abnormally large transfers) in the mempool, participants with ordering rights have the opportunity to extract additional profits through front-running, sandwiching, or copying transactions. In the context of a security incident, this mechanism can amplify attack efficiency, for example, by helping attackers ensure that attack transactions enter the block with better gas bids or capturing the arbitrage space generated on-chain at the moment the attack is completed. This gives rise to an increasingly sharp controversy: when MEV participants are involved in transactions related to security incidents, should their identity be regarded as a neutral infrastructure provider, or should they bear higher compliance responsibilities as active subjects? Supporters emphasize that Builders and Searchers act passively based on publicly available on-chain information and profit maximization logic, without judging the "goodness or badness" of transactions; while critics question that it is unrealistic to completely absolve responsibility when there are already obvious signs of abnormal large transfers or suspicious patterns. Looking back at other DeFi attack cases, the phenomenon of MEV participants front-running liquidations and sandwiching arbitrage during severe protocol fluctuations is not uncommon, and the long-term existence of this gray area indicates that discussions around the role positioning, responsibility allocation, and potential regulatory paths of MEV have far exceeded the self-regulatory scope within the technical community.
The Silence of MakinaFi and the Communication Gap in Security Incidents
According to currently available single-source information, MakinaFi has not released a detailed official event statement as of the time of writing, and this state of public opinion is also marked as "pending further verification," indicating that the external understanding of the project team's internal handling progress and communication strategy is not complete. Comparing this incident with past similar attacks, it is not difficult to find differences in strategies among different projects regarding announcement speed, vulnerability disclosure transparency, and compensation commitments, which often directly reshape the community's judgment of their professionalism and reliability. Some protocols provide preliminary explanations within hours of the attack, clearly stating that "the incident has been detected, key functions have been suspended, and we are working with the security team to investigate," and subsequently disclose more technical details and fund handling plans in phases; while other projects choose to remain silent when information is still incomplete, attempting to "figure things out internally before speaking," but in the process, they accumulate user panic and distrust. The rhythm of information disclosure in security incidents directly and specifically impacts user confidence, asset run risk, and secondary market sentiment: a slow response can amplify rumors and the most pessimistic expectations, while overly optimistic or vague statements may backfire on the project's credibility when facts further deteriorate. In this context, how DeFi protocols design emergency response plans in advance is evolving from a technical issue into a governance issue. More mature practices often include: clearly defining the emergency authority boundaries of multi-signature decisions within the governance framework, setting up a pause switch or risk control threshold that can be quickly triggered in the event of a security incident, and agreeing on pre-prepared collaborative processes with security audit and monitoring partners—once an anomaly occurs, who discovers it first, who confirms it, and who communicates externally all need to have a clear plan in place before the incident, rather than being pieced together on the fly.
Regulatory Bills and Wall Street on the Chain: What Kind of Footnote Has MakinaFi Become?
The timing of the MakinaFi incident coincided with Coinbase actively promoting public discussions on crypto regulatory bills, making this attack easily included in the list of "real-world examples" used to support the view that "smart contracts pose systemic risks and require stricter regulation." On the same day, the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) announced the development of a tokenized trading platform, which made waves in the traditional financial sector. On one side is a highly compliant traditional infrastructure emphasizing investor protection and operational responsibility on-chain, while on the other side is the apparent gap in smart contract security, governance transparency, and user protection in DeFi protocols. This stark contrast has inadvertently deepened the perception of the disparity in safety standards and responsibility allocation between the two systems. For the regulatory camp, incidents like MakinaFi can serve as "textbook cases" to push for legislation, reinforcing demands for mandatory smart contract audits, standardized risk disclosure, and certain constraints on MEV behavior; especially in the context where MEV has been proven to amplify attack efficiency, questions like "who is responsible for transaction ordering and whether they should bear auditing obligations" may gradually be incorporated into the regulatory agenda. From the perspective of institutional funds, such attack incidents directly affect their overall risk pricing of DeFi: participating in high-yield strategies in a public chain ecosystem without a clear responsibility chain will increasingly be weighed against choosing compliant chains, regulated tokenized platforms, or accountable custodians. In the long run, this preference may reshape how large funds participate in different chains and protocol forms, and will compel the DeFi camp to provide more convincing answers on safety and compliance.
Looking at DeFi's New Year Exam Questions from the First 4 Million Attack
Returning to MakinaFi itself, this "New Year’s first strike" has concentratedly exposed weaknesses in DeFi on at least three levels. First is contract design and security engineering, as classic vulnerabilities like reentrancy can still be repeatedly exploited by attackers in 2026, indicating significant gaps in audit depth, testing coverage, and upgrade mechanisms; second is the game structure around MEV, where the increasingly centralized reality of transaction ordering rights is becoming a new amplifier for interactions between attackers and the MEV ecosystem; third is the emergency response and communication mechanism, where the project team's response speed, transparency, and decision-making process after the incident directly determine whether user trust will undergo irreversible collapse. Around these three main lines, a foreseeable evolutionary direction has already formed a consensus in the industry: stricter audit standards at the technical level, more real-time on-chain monitoring and early warning tools will be viewed as "must-haves" rather than "nice-to-haves" by more protocols; at the governance level, clearer emergency authority designs and pre-incident drills are needed; in terms of regulation, rules regarding smart contract risk disclosure, MEV behavior boundaries, and on-chain data evidence collection will gradually take shape in the coming years. As traditional institutions and regulatory forces delve deeper into this field, if DeFi projects cannot keep pace with safety and transparency, they may be marginalized in the next round of capital and traffic redistribution, becoming "enclaves" for a few high-risk participants. In this process, several key nodes following the MakinaFi incident are worth continuous attention: whether the project team will provide a systematic official response and timeline review, whether the technical details of the vulnerabilities will be disclosed to some extent, and whether this attack will mark the beginning of a new wave of security turmoil, prompting more protocols to proactively "catch up." These answers will gradually emerge in the on-chain world of 2026.
Join our community to discuss and become stronger together!
Official Telegram community: https://t.me/aicoincn
AiCoin Chinese Twitter: https://x.com/AiCoinzh
OKX Welfare Group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=l61eM4owQ
Binance Welfare Group: https://aicoin.com/link/chat?cid=ynr7d1P6Z
免责声明：本文章仅代表作者个人观点，不代表本平台的立场和观点。本文章仅供信息分享，不构成对任何人的任何投资建议。用户与作者之间的任何争议，与本平台无关。如网页中刊载的文章或图片涉及侵权，请提供相关的权利证明和身份证明发送邮件到support@aicoin.com，本平台相关工作人员将会进行核查。
