Federal prosecutors in the US have charged Andean Medjedovic with hacking decentralized finance protocols for $65 million.
Canadian Math Whiz
Medjedovic was a promising student, graduating high school in Waterloo, Canada at age 14 and enrolling in the University of Waterloo's math department, the same university attended by Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin. Medjedovic completed his undergraduate degree in three years and pursued a master's degree. He was active in coding competitions and showed interest in decentralized financial products.
Charges in Indexed Finance Hacks
In October 2021, Medjedovic allegedly manipulated trading to exploit Indexed Finance liquidity pools on the Ethereum network. After studying a forum, he found a loophole in the code and developed a script to execute the hack, resulting in $16.5 million in damages.
KyberSwap Hack and Extortion
According to the US Department of Justice, Medjedovic also hacked KyberSwap, using large amounts of borrowed cryptocurrency to create artificial prices in liquidity pools. He attempted to extort developers for control of the company in exchange for returning the funds.
Charges against Andean Medjedovic include attempted money laundering and extortion. US authorities are collaborating with international counterparts to apprehend him.
