Telegram trading bot Maestro refunds users 610 ETH after router exploit

Maestrobots, a group of cryptocurrency bots on the Telegram messenger app, is refunding users in the aftermath of a 280 Ether ( ETH ) attack.

The Maestro team refunded the users affected by the Maestro Router 2 contract, the platform announced on X (formerly Twitter) on Oct. 25. According to the announcement, Maestrobots paid a total of 610 ETH in its own revenue to cover all the user losses, worth more than $1 million at the time of writing.

“Every wallet that lost tokens in the router exploit has now received the full amount they lost. Some of you ended up with even bigger bags,” Maestro wrote.

The Maestro team noted that some amounts were paid back in affected tokens and ETH. For nine out of the 11 exploited tokens, Maestro chose to buy and refund tokens instead of sending ETH because “it’s the most equitable and complete refund” it could offer. “We spent 276 ETH to secure our users’ tokens,” Maestro added.

Affected users of the other two exploited tokens — including Joe (JOE) and Lockheed Martin Inu (LMI) — were refunded in ETH, Maestro said, citing a lack of liquidity to buy back the lost tokens. The announcement added:

“So we compensated affected users with the ETH equivalent of their tokens, and boosted that amount by 20% because you deserve it. These refunds cost 334 ETH.”

Blockchain security firm CertiK confirmed to Cointelegraph that it has been able to detect the transactions showing the 334 ETH compensation paid out to users from Maestro.

The refunds came shortly after Maestro reported that the MaestroRouter on ETH mainnet was compromised on Oct. 24, allowing hackers to siphon around 280 ETH in exploited tokens, worth around $485,000 at the time of the hack. The Maestro team said it identified the attack within 30 minutes after the start and fully removed the exploit. The platform also quickly resumed trading, temporarily halting tokens with pools on SushiSwap, ShibaSwap and ETH PancakeSwap.

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“Wallets were not compromised at all during this attack. This was purely directed at the Router,” Maestro wrote.

According to the executive summary by CertiK, Maestro’s smart contract breach affected a total of 106 user addresses. The affected tokens include LMI, JOE, Mog Coin (MOG), ApeSwap (BANANA), Oggy inu (OGGY), Jim (JIM), Liquid Protocol (LP), Real Smurf Cat (BSC) and Prophet (PROPHET) — among others.

“Most of these tokens pumped back up due to the anticipation that we were gonna market buy the tokens. Most of these tokens are still alive and kicking,” a spokesperson for Maestrobots told Cointelegraph.

Maestro, also known as MaestroBots on X, is a Telegram bot facilitating trades across three networks, including Ethereum, BNB Chain and Arbitrum, with a default transaction fee of 1%. The Maestro bot system features three different bots, including the Maestro Whale Bot, the Maestro Sniper Bot and the Maestro Wallet Bot. The Maestro Bots Hub Telegram channel has more than 100,000 subscribers at the time of writing, while its X account counts more than 24,000 followers.

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