Compound chief offers NFTs to people who return mislaid COMP tokens

Compound founder Robert Leshner says around 117,000 missing tokens worth $38.7m have so far been returned from the $90m accidentally issued to users last week.

In a desperate attempt to recover the missing fortune, Leshner also offered to give the first five people to return misplaced COMP an equal share of an NFT. When the five pieces are placed together – Exodia-style – they apparently summon Compound’s maker in real life.

Trouble erupted last week when a bug in an update of the decentralised finance platform sent users approximately $90-million-worth of cryptocurrency in error, leaving the CEO begging users to voluntarily send it back.

Leshner confirmed there was a cap on how many COMP tokens could be accidentally distributed, noting “the impact is bounded, at worst, 280,000 comp tokens” – about $92.6 million.

However, after the pool of cash had been replenished, another 202,472.5 COMP tokens were exposed. That means roughly another $66.9 million at its current price.

This, according to Leshner, represents around $162 million up for grabs after an upgrade went wrong.

DeFi protocols such as Compound are made in order to challenge traditional financial systems such as banks and exchanges by using blockchains enhanced with self-executing smart contracts.

Can ‘Compound case’ happen again?

When Compound went out with its usual upgrade, something went seriously wrong and users started to receive millions of dollars in tokens.

One transaction, for example, claimed $30 million worth of COMP.

After Leshner pleaded with users to voluntarily return the platform’s crypto tokens, some actually did. However, 117,000 doesn’t represent near-half of the amount lost.

Mati Greenspan, portfolio manager and Quantum Economics founder, said the real problem was not what just happened but that “the bigger issue is — can it happen again?”.

Greenspan added the protocol can easily absorb this loss and a lot of it will likely be returned, “but the larger issue would be if people lose confidence in the system’s ability to function properly”.