These DeFi Domains Might Be Risky to Investors

In addition to cryptocurrency wallets and non-fungible token (NFT) companies, malicious actors recently targeted decentralized financial (DeFi) platforms. They got away with US$90 million.¹ One way some NFT companies may be addressing the threat is by defensive domain registration.²

To determine if DeFi platforms are doing the same, we looked at how 10 DeFi brand names are being used in the Domain Name System (DNS). Our findings include:

• 1,200+ domains added since 1 April 2022 contained the names of 10 of the most popular DeFi companies, namely, AAVE, Decentraland, Dharma, Dydx, Kyber Network, Lucky Block, SushiSwap, Terra, Uniswap, and Yearn.finance
• All of the platforms’ official domain names had redacted WHOIS records, making attribution difficult
• None of the domains shared the same WHOIS characteristics, the same combination of privacy protection services, nameservers, registrars, and registrant countries
• Dozens of domains have already been flagged for phishing or malware hosting

Download a sample of the threat research materials now or contact us for accessing the complete research materials. 

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• [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/spate-exploits-snares-rari-capital-091600216.html 
• [2] https://domainnamewire.com/2022/04/21/nft-company-dapper-labs-registers-hundreds-of-domain-names/