TON price manipulation: what happened

• Last night there was an attempt to manipulate the price of TON ecosystem tokens on CEX exchanges.
• The attacker was simultaneously opening/closing positions on Storm Trade while buying/selling tokens on CEX.
• The main focus was TON. Attempts to repeat the manipulation on Notcoin, Major, and DOGS failed: Storm’s built-in protection automatically widens spreads on low-liquidity pairs during sharp volatility, making such trades unprofitable. On TON, VPI also kicked in, but due to higher liquidity the spread adjustment was minor.
• Pyth Network delivered correct data to Storm, aggregating prices directly from CEX exchanges.
• The attacker’s net profit was $240K, withdrawn from TON, USDT, and NOT vaults.
• The NOT vault buffer was sufficient to cover the trader’s positive P&L. For TON and USDT, buffers absorbed most of the losses but were depleted, leaving the vaults down -1.35% in USDT and -1.77% in TON.

Our response

• Once the manipulation was identified, we capped open interest on TON and TONDEGEN pairs, halting further activity.
• The manipulations stopped immediately.

What’s next?

• We’ve temporarily introduced more conservative parameters for TON trading.
• While the current risk parameters (OI limits, spread adjustment, max P&L) helped reduce the damage, we’ll conduct a detailed review and design additional protection against similar attacks.
• TON and USDT vault buffers have already been replenished and are back under protection.

How we refilled the buffers?

• A portion of fees paid by the attacker automatically went to the STORM buyback address.
• These fees ($57,600) were redirected to the TON and USDT liquidity buffers.
• Remember: we also hold STORM previously bought back when buffers were overfilled.
• An equivalent amount of those tokens has now been returned to the buyback address, and will be distributed to stakers over the next week.

What about LPs who took losses?

• Protocol profits collected as execution fees from the attacker’s trades will be directed to compensate LPs who incurred losses, starting from their staking date.

What this case proves?

• Buffers truly work as a shield — they absorb the hit and buy time to react.
• Even a “successful” attack is capped by the protocol’s risk parameters.
• Reserve STORM from the buffer is a real, working safeguard for LPs.
• Every case like this fuels protocol development and makes Storm stronger.

— The Storm Team ⚡️

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