Telegram trading bot Maestro refunds users 610 ETH after router exploit

Maestrobots, a group of cryptocurrency bots on Telegram Messenger, is refunding users after a 280 Ether (ETH) stroke.

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

“Each 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 refunded in affected tokens and ETH. For nine of the 11 mined tokens, Maestro opted to purchase and redeem tokens rather than send ETH because “it is the most equitable and complete redemption” it could offer. "We spent 276 ETH to protect our users' tokens," Maestro added.

Affected users of the other two mined tokens, including JOE and LMI, received a refund in ETH, Maestro said, citing a lack of liquidity to buy back the lost tokens. The announcement added:

“So we compensate the affected users with the ETH equivalent of their tokens and increase that amount by 20% because they deserve it. These refunds cost 334 ETH.”

Blockchain security company CertiK confirmed to Cointelegraph that it has been able to detect transactions showing compensation of 334 ETH paid to users by Maestro.

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

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“Wallets were not compromised at all during this attack. This was aimed exclusively at the router,” Maestro wrote.

According to CertiK's executive summary, the Maestro smart contract breach affected a total of 106 user addresses. The affected tokens included MOG, LMI, JOE, BANANA, OGGY, JIM, ETF, LP, APU, Real Smurf Cat, and PROPHET.

“Most of these tokens rose again due to the anticipation that we were going to buy the tokens on the market. Most of these tokens are still alive and well,” a Maestrobots spokesperson told Cointelegraph.

Maestro, also known as MaestroBots on 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 this article, while his X account has more than 24,000 followers.

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