OpenZeppelin
Skip to content

Origin Dollar Audit

OpenZeppelin Security | October 25, 2021

The Origin Protocol team asked us to review and audit their Origin Dollar smart contracts. We looked at the code and now publish our results.

Scope

We audited commit bf4ff28d5944ecc277e66294fd2c702fee5cd58b of the Origin-Dollar repository. The scope includes all files in the following directories within contracts/contracts/, except specified exclusions:

  • buyback/
  • flipper/
  • liquidity/
  • oracle/, except ChainlinkOracle.sol and MixOracle.sol
  • strategies/
  • token/
  • utils/
  • vault/

In addition, imported interfaces were in scope. All other project files and directories (including tests), along with external dependencies and projects, were excluded from the scope of this audit. External code and contract dependencies were assumed to work as documented.

System overview

Origin Dollar (symbol: OUSD) is an ERC-20 compliant stablecoin backed by other stablecoins. The project is currently live, with OUSD deployed at 0x2A8e1E676Ec238d8A992307B495b45B3fEAa5e86 and the vault (for user interaction) deployed at 0xE75D77B1865Ae93c7eaa3040B038D7aA7BC02F70. Additional project addresses can be found on their registry.

OUSD stays fully collateralized and maintains a 1:1 peg to USD (approximated by the underlying DAI, USDC, and USDT) by taking favorable exchange rates when converting between OUSD and DAI, USDC, USDT via minting or redeeming, and investing that collateral to earn yield. The yield earned by the project is distributed to OUSD owners and a trustee address in the form of increased OUSD supply.

Users can mint OUSD by depositing either DAI, USDC, or USDT, which goes into the project’s vault. The amount of OUSD minted depends on the current price of DAI, USDC, or USDT, as reported by Chainlink, in USD terms. The Origin Dollar project caps the value of DAI, USDC,and USDT at 1 USD, such that no more than 1 OUSD can be minted in exchange for 1 DAI, USDC, or USDT.

The project invests the DAI, USDC, and USDT into either Aave, Compound, or Curve to earn yield via the strategy contracts. Each underlying token (either DAI, USDC, and USDT) has a default strategy contract to which it is allocated. The project balances the underlying funds between the vault and strategy contracts, using a buffer, such that the vault remains liquid while most funds continue to earn yield.

Due to safety considerations, only externally owned accounts earn yield by default. However, contract addresses can opt-in to rebasing to share in the yield earned by the strategies, which will periodically increase the number of OUSD owned. The rebase process can also distribute a portion of the yield to the trustee. Currently, the trustee is a contract that implements an OGN buyback program: the OUSD is traded for OGN tokens through Uniswap to create buy pressure.

Users can redeem OUSD from the vault, receiving a pro-rata share of the value of DAI, USDC, and USDT in proportions equal to those held by the project. The price of the stablecoins is taken into account at redemption such that their value is capped at no more than 1 OUSD. Redeeming OUSD through the vault will incur a fee set by governance. The purpose is to incentivize long-term deposits to encourage stability.

In addition to these core contracts, we also reviewed some utility contracts that support auxiliary behaviors:

  • There is a Flipper contract that is provided to users as a way to swap in and out of OUSD cheaply for any of DAI, USDC, or USDT at a fixed 1:1 rate. This contract will be used as an alternative way to route user transactions originating from the web app. This contract may become illiquid on one side (e.g., contain 0 OUSD balance), and thus sometimes provides limited swap routes.
  • OUSD is governable and upgradeable. The Origin team is currently planning an upgrade to increase the resolution of rebasing calculations from 18 decimals to 27 decimals. The OUSD token itself will still retain 18 decimals of precision and user balances should not change.
  • There is a mechanism to reward users that provide OUSD liquidity to third-party systems. The Origin team intends to run campaigns to distribute a specified number of OGN tokens amongst all users that lock approved LP tokens, thereby proving they contributed (or incentivized) liquidity.

Privileged roles

There are a variety of roles to manage access control, primarily used on the critical vault and strategy functions. There is a governor role, currently assumed by the 5-of-8 multisig at 0xbe2AB3d3d8F6a32b96414ebbd865dBD276d3d899, which is the administrator of the governor contract at 0x830622bdd79cc677ee6594e20bbda5b26568b781 . There is also a strategist role, currently assumed by the 2-of-9 multisig at 0xF14BBdf064E3F67f51cd9BD646aE3716aD938FDC. In addition, many functions are restricted to only being called by the vault.

There is overlap between these roles’ capabilities. The most notable functions callable by either the governor, strategist, or vault are provided below.

Notable functions callable by the governor address:

  • queue, cancel, and upgradeTo for upgrade proposals
  • setStrategistAddr, approveStrategy, removeStrategy, and setAssetsDefaultStrategy
  • setPriceProvider and setUniswapAddress
  • setTrusteeAddr
  • setRedeemFeeBps
  • setVaultBuffer used to balance funds between the vault and strategies
  • transferTokens from the buyback contract to the governor address
  • withdrawAll from the flipper contract to the governor address
  • setAutoAllocateThreshold and setRebaseThreshold to handle automatic allocate and rebase while minting
  • setRewardTokenAddress, setRewardLiquidationThreshold, and harvest to collect reward tokens from yield platforms
  • functions to pause/unpause deposits and rebasing
  • withdrawAllFromStrategy and withdrawAllFromStrategies to withdraw all assets from any or all strategies and send them to the vault
  • startCampaign and stopCampaign for liquidity reward programs

Notable functions callable by the strategist address:

  • setVaultBuffer used to balance funds between the vault and strategies
  • pauseRebase, pauseCapital, and unpauseCapital to stop deposits
  • withdrawAllFromStrategy and withdrawAllFromStrategies to withdraw all assets from any or all strategy and send them to the vault
  • harvest to collect reward tokens from yield platforms and swap them for stablecoins

Notable functions callable by the vault address:

  • mint, burn, and changeSupply of OUSD
  • swap OUSD for OGN in the buyback contract
  • harvest to collect reward tokens from yield platforms and collectRewardToken to transfer them to the vault
  • deposit, depositAll and withdraw, into or out of strategies

Security model and trust assumptions

OUSD is governable and upgradeable. The governance system can be used to change many critical factors, as well as the pricing oracle, giving governance ultimate powers. Since the system is already deployed, we considered the current value of critical factors when assessing findings. We assume governance will act in the protocol’s best interest, would not approve malicious or ill-advised upgrades, and maintains sensible values for sensitive variables.

The project also has many integrations, thus, it relies on trusting numerous systems to act in a well-defined manner. For example, the system relies on trusting Chainlink for accurate and available pricing, as well as trusting that Uniswap, Aave, Compound, and Curve will work as intended for swapping, depositing, withdrawing, and other investing functions. External code and contract dependencies were assumed to work as documented.

In addition, OUSD is fully backed by DAI, USDC, and USDT. Thus, the value of OUSD depends on the resilience of these underlying stablecoins. If, for example, DAI were to lose it’s peg from USD and never return, this would cause economic issues for OUSD, despite the automated mitigations. In such a case, an upgrade may be necessary to change OUSD token dynamics to maintain a 1:1 peg with USD.

Here we present our findings.

Update

Most of the following issues have been either fixed, partially fixed, or acknowledged by the Origin Team. Our analysis of the mitigations is limited to the specific changes made to cover the issues, and disregards all other unrelated changes in the pull requests and in the codebase.

Critical severity

[C01] Attacker can steal a portion of the reward tokens and accrued yield

The _allocate function in the VaultCore:

In both cases, the protocol uses the swapExactTokensForTokens function on Uniswap’s UniswapV2Router02 contract and sets the minimum number of tokens to receive to zero. In other words, there is no slippage protection, which makes the trades vulnerable to price manipulation.

As an example, consider a scenario where the vault is on the verge of collecting and liquidating its Compound reward tokens, COMP. An attacker could:

  1. Flash-borrow a huge amount of COMP and sell it in the COMP/WETH Uniswap pool to significantly lower the COMP price
  2. Call the mint or mintMultiple functions to trigger an allocation and swap the harvested COMP tokens. Due to the price movement in step 1, the contract will receive less than the market value. This also lowers the COMP price further.
  3. Sell the WETH back in the Uniswap pool to recover the COMP, which will be even cheaper due to step 2.
  4. Repay the loan. Since the attacker buys COMP at a cheaper rate than it was initially sold, they profit the difference.

Similarly, the attacker can perform a flash-loan to borrow OUSD and manipulate the OUSD/OGN price in Uniswap (by moving the OUSD/USDT and/or the OGN/WETH price), to extract some of the value of the OUSD swapped by the Buyback contract. In the worst-case scenario, the attacker would perform this same attack in the same transaction for all the reward tokens collected from all the strategies, and for the OUSD swapped by the Buyback contract.

Note that the profit that the attacker can make from this attack depends on the amount of money deposited in the strategies, since the amount of reward tokens collected and the yield accrued are proportional to this amount. Consequently, the feasibility of this attack increases as the platform’s investments grow.

Additionally, it is worth mentioning that this same attack can be performed without using a flash-loan, by sandwiching a call to the allocate function, which can be called by anyone, or by sandwiching a call to any of the versions of the harvest function in the VaultAdmin contract, which can be called by the governor or the strategist.

Consider adding slippage protection to all calls to the swapExactTokensForTokens function from the UniswapV2Router02 contract.

Update: Fixed in PR#624 and PR#724. However, the BuybackConstructor still references the Uniswap V2 router.

High severity

[H01] Resolution upgrade inconsistency

The OUSD token achieves its rebasing functionality by tracking credit balances and scaling them by a conversion factor to retrieve the corresponding OUSD token balances. The OUSDResolutionUpgrade contract is designed as a temporary logic contract that replaces the token functionality with mechanisms to increase the precision of the conversion factors. In particular, there is a function to update the global parameters and a separate function to upgrade the individual user accounts in batches.

To avoid upgrading the same account multiple times, an upgrade flag is set for each account. Similarly, the upgrade flag is set for the zero address to indicate that the global parameters have been updated. There is no access control on either of these functions. This means that an attacker can include the zero address in a batch of account upgrades, which will set its flag and prevent anyone from upgrading the global state. This could produce an inconsistent state where a subset of the accounts use the new resolution, while the global parameters remain unchanged.

Consider restricting the upgradeAccounts function to non-zero account.

Update: Fixed in commit 95e8c90.

[H02] Valid redemptions may fail

The _calculateRedeemOutputs function in the VaultCore contract calculates the amount of each asset to be redeemed based on the total amount held by the vault and strategies. For the latter, this amount is calculated by summing the balance of each asset in each strategy, without considering whether this strategy is the asset’s default strategy.

The _redeem function uses the calculated redeem outputs, then iterates through the approved assets to try to withdraw the total asset balance (across all strategies) from only the asset’s default strategy, unless the vault already has a sufficient balance for the redemption.

Since the output ratios include balances held in non-default strategies, and _redeem only withdraws from the default strategy, this mismatch may cause the redemption process to fail in some scenarios where the protocol has enough liquidity. This can happen, for instance, when setting a new default strategy for a given asset without reallocating a sufficient amount from the old default strategy to the new default strategy.

Consider using the asset balance in all strategies to pay back the caller, instead of just the default strategy. Alternatively, consider ensuring that each asset is only invested through its default strategy.

Update: Not fixed. The Origin team states:

We’ll keep this the way it is. Some yield earning protocols are inherently attackable when users can force OUSD to move funds into and out of them, either from entrance/withdrawal fees or economic attacks. In order to be able to use these, we have to have funds that can’t be deposited to or withdraw under direct user control. The allocations into and out of non-default strategies is currently handled by the strategist role, and we are planning on transitioning this funds allocation to community governance.

[H03] Manipulable rewards calculations

When a user deposits LP tokens into the LiquidityReward contract, they are entitled to a proportional share of subsequently released rewards, which is tracked as a credit of the equivalent share of all accumulated rewards and a debt of the corresponding rewards that were released before the deposit, which the user should not receive. The aggregate effect is calculated using the contract’s LP token balance and the totalRewardDebt.

However, if a user simply transfers LP tokens to the contract directly, their tokens will be captured in the contract’s balance but not the totalRewardDebt. In such a scenario:

Consider tracking the amount of LP token deposits so valid deposits can be distinguished from the contract balance.

Update: Fixed in PR#688.

[H04] Incorrect slippage in Curve 3Pool strategy

When withdrawing funds from the ThreePoolStrategy, LP tokens are exchanged for the underlying asset. To control slippage, a minimum asset amount to receive is specified.

However, the actual parameter does not match the intended usage. Instead, it is calculated as a fraction of the burned LP tokens, scaled so it has the same precision as the asset to withdraw. This is not a meaningful value, and when interpreted as an asset quantity, it may be more than the burned LP tokens are worth. In this scenario, the liquidity removal will fail unexpectedly.

To avoid this scenario, consider setting this parameter to _amount. Given the way the number of tokens to burn was calculated, they will always exchange for _amount of assets at least. This would match the current behavior while avoiding the possibility of an unnecessary failure to withdraw.

Unfortunately, this suggestion does not protect against a front-running attack or sandwich attack, where the instantaneous state of the Curve protocol differs significantly from market equilibrium. To mitigate this, the ThreePoolStrategy contract would need the fair market rate of LP tokens denominated in the asset to withdraw.

Update: Partially fixed by PR#716. The withdraw function will now remove at least _amount from Curve’s 3Pool. Note, however, that the withdraw function still does not protect against front-running or sandwich attacks.

[H05] AAVE inconsistency

The AaveStrategy contract uses the version 2 interface in anticipation of a future reconfiguration of the investment strategies. However, we identified two inconsistencies:

When this was raised with the Origin team they indicated that they had already identified and addressed the first inconsistency in a subsequent commit. Consider using the new interface when withdrawing all tokens.

Update: Fixed in commit 650913e.

Medium severity

[M01] Mint after balance check

The collectRewardToken function of the ThreePoolStrategy contract mints any outstanding reward tokens and transfers its reward balance to the vault. However, the outstanding tokens are minted after the reward balance is retrieved and the event is emitted. This means that the newly minted tokens are not sent to the vault, and will only be transferred in a subsequent call to collectRewardToken.

Consider minting the new reward tokens first to ensure they are included in the transfer.

Update: Fixed in PR#640.

[M02] Not enforcing a default strategy for new assets

The supportAsset function allows the governor to add a new asset to the VaultCore contract, but it does not enforce a default strategy for it by calling the setAssetDefaultStrategy.

This can potentially cause a misbehavior when allocating assets from the vault to the strategies. The new asset can still be deposited through the mint or mintMultiple functions, and it will contribute to the utilization of the vault buffer, but it will not be deposited to any strategy. This skews the investment ratio so a higher percentage of all the other assets will be moved to the strategies, draining the buffer that should be used for future redemptions.

Consider enforcing configuration of the asset’s default strategy in the supportAsset function.

Update: Not fixed. The Origin team states:

We’ll keep this the way it is. This won’t lose any funds if it’s not set. The vault still operates without a default strategy (both places it is used, allocating and redeeming check if this is set and skip it if it is not). It is possible that there may be temporary times in DeFi when the Origin Dollar doesn’t trust any lending protocol/strategy, and goes to purely holding assets to increase stability until things settle down.

[M03] Not checking asset balance in strategy before removal

The removePToken function from the InitializableAbstractStrategy lets the governor remove an asset from the strategy, by:

However, there are no checks for whether the strategy still invests the asset in the underlying platform before removing it. If the asset is removed, this invested amount will be disregarded when checking the total amount of assets held by a strategy, which is used to perform allocations, or when calculating the redeem outputs, which is used to perform redemptions. Additionally, the invested amount will be disregarded in the withdrawAll functions defined on each child contract.

Consider either reverting if the strategy still invests the asset, or sending the remaining balance to the vault contract.

Update: Not fixed. The Origin team states:

We’ll keep this as it. We can recover funds if we need to by re-adding the strategy. By not checking amounts etc, it gives us a way to remove a strategy that is broken in some way, and prevents some other project’s DOS from being our DOS for long.

[M04] Trapped Liquidity Rewards

Whenever a liquidity reward campaign is initiated, the LiquidityReward contract ensures the contract is preloaded with enough reward tokens to execute the campaign. However, some of these rewards would not be distributed if the campaign is stopped. In this scenario, the excess reward tokens cannot be retrieved from the contract. It would be possible to start a new campaign, but then the funds would be distributed to the existing depositors, which may not be desired (and likely undermines the reason for stopping the campaign). Consider introducing a mechanism to retrieve reward tokens that are not intended for distribution.

Update: Fixed in PR#688.

[M05] Excessive Curve 3Pool withdrawal

When withdrawing funds from the ThreePoolStrategy, the number of LP tokens to burn is determined by retrieving the asset value of all LP tokens, and then scaling down linearly to the desired withdrawal amount. However, not all LP tokens are valued equally: as the size of the withdrawal increases, the value of each LP token should decrease. This means the withdrawal will retrieve too many tokens.

To account for this, any excess tokens are sent to the vault. The comments and variables names suggest that the excess amount would be negligible. However, since most use cases involve withdrawing a small fraction of all the assets invested by this strategy, and the discrepancy increases as the fraction decreases, it could be significant. It is worth noting that excess funds that are sent to the vault do not automatically trigger a reallocation if they exceed the internal liquidity buffer.

To avoid excess withdrawals, consider using the calc_token_amount function to determine the number of LP tokens to burn or the remove_liquidity_imbalance function to withdraw a specific amount of asset tokens.

Update: Partially fixed in PR#718. Although remove_liquidity_imbalance is now used to avoid excess withdrawal from Curve’s 3Pool, the strategy contract still withdraws, at most, the maximum amount needed from the Gauge. In addition, the strict in inequality in this require statement makes it impossible to withdraw the max amount of pTokens.

Low severity

[L01] Unhandled token transfer fees

The mint and mintMultiple functions of the VaultCore contract implicitly assume the token deposit will transfer the specified number of tokens. However, the system supports the USDT token, which includes the possibility of transfer fees. Consider minting OUSD tokens based on a measurement of the amount of received tokens.

Update: Not fixed. The Origin team states:

We will be leaving this as is. It is our current belief that enabling transactions fees on Tether would destroy it, given that its entire success is based on being the lowest friction stable medium of exchange. In the event that Tether enables fees, we’ll adjust at that time.

[L02] Cannot redeem from both accounts simultaneously

When redeeming OUSD tokens, the VaultCore contract will retrieve all the tokens from either its own buffer or the default strategy. However, if neither the buffer nor the strategy has sufficient balance individually, the transfer will fail, even if the combined balance is large enough and the redemption is valid. This could occur for large redemptions or unbalanced stablecoin reserves, and gets worse when the vaultBuffer is high.

Consider withdrawing from both the buffer and the strategies when required.

Update: Not fixed. The Origin team states:

We are going to keep this the way it for now. We would rather have less complexity in the code here. The buffer in OUSD is a gas optimization to keep gas usage from being extremely expensive during non-huge mints and redeems, and only needs to keep a very small portion of the total vault value in the buffer. Right now, it’s targeting a half a percent of the assets, and as the asset amount goes up further, this percentage will be lowered more. While there remains a reasonable amount of assets in OUSD, this shouldn’t be a problem. In the case that almost all assets are being withdrawn, it should still be possible to get funds out, it just may take carefully chosen withdrawal amounts.

[L03] Residual token allowance

There are multiple places in the codebase where addresses may retain excess token allowances:

Consider revoking token allowances when they are no longer required.

Update: Acknowledged and retained. The Origin team states:

The strategy and buyback contracts are designed to be short-lived if necessary. The major change of switching underlying systems would probably be accompanied by a clean proxy and a clean slate of storage.

The vault though is designed to last for the long term. However the only approvals it currently does are for the exact amount of the swap being made. This means that there should be no left over approvals afterwords that need to be revoked.

[L04] Rounding down in OUSD calculations

When transferring tokens, the OUSD contract translates the token amount to the equivalent number of credits. However, the value is rounded down in both directions. As a general principle, to minimize the attack surface, rounding errors should be in favor of the protocol. Consider using the mulTruncateCeil function to calculate creditsDeducted.

Similarly, consider using the mulTruncateCeil function when calculating the number of credits to burn. This would also remove the need to check for rounding errors when burning the whole balance.

Update: Not fixed. The Origin team states:

We are going to keep this as is for now. While rounding in the protocol’s favor is generally good, any rounding against the users’ transfer, mint, and burn amounts gets quite painful for users. Users expect that if they send someone X, the recipient will get X, and that if they want to keep Y, and they send their balance minus Y, that they will still have Y. The amounts involved are trillionths of a trillionth of a dollar, and OUSD has a flow of yield coming into it.

[L05] Not leaving a storage gap in upgradeable contracts on multi-level inheritance

The CompoundStrategy, AaveStrategy, and ThreePoolStrategy contracts inherit from InitializableAbstractStrategy, and are all meant to be upgradeable, which means that the governance can add new functions and/or storage variables to them. However, if a new storage variable is added to the InitializableAbstractStrategy contract, it will overwrite the storage of the children contracts and therefore will make the storage layout incompatible.

To allow additions of new state variables without compromising the storage compatibility with existing deployments, consider leaving a storage gap at the end of each newely deployed upgradeable contract that has children contracts. Note that this should only be performed in newly deployed contracts, and not between upgrades.

Update: Fixed in PR#713.

[L06] Rewards can overflow buffer

When allocating funds, the VaultCore contract first ensures its internal buffer is full and then determines the excess amount to invest. After investing this amount for each asset, it harvests any rewards from its previous investments and converts them to USDT.

This implies that the reward balances, which can be arbitrarily large, remain in the vault and exceed the size of the buffer. This undermines the purpose of the buffer and is an unexpected behavior. Consider harvesting the rewards before determining and allocating the available funds.

Update: Fixed in PR#690. The reward tokens are now harvested before allocating assets to the strategies.

[L07] Outdated Solidity version in use

An outdated Solidity version, 0.5.11, is currently in use. As Solidity is now under a fast release cycle, consider using the latest compiler version at the time of future deployments and upgrades (presently 0.8.7) to incorporate the latest bug fixes. Note that although Solidity uses semantic versioning, it may introduce breaking changes between its minor versions, which should be taken into consideration.

Update: Fixed in PR#738.

[L08] Simplify redeem outputs calculation

The calculation to split a value into a fair distribution of coins is unnecessarily complicated. In particular, the total balance of all stablecoins is redundant and can be ignored (or set to 1), which makes the calculation easier to reason about, as follows:

  • the ratio parameter would become the product of the balance and the price (i.e., the value of the asset held in the vault).
  • the totalOutputRatio parameter could be renamed to totalValue, since it represents the value held by the vault.
  • the factor parameter now corresponds to the fraction of the vault that is being redeemed.
  • the outputs parameter has the same value as before, but now it can be directly interpreted as the same fraction of each asset balance.

Consider removing the totalBalance parameter from the calculation.

Update: Acknowledged. The Origin team states:

We’ll keep this the way it is. While it is correct that calculating the total balance of all stablecoins is not a requirement to calculate the outputs, returning that number from the function does provide a considerable gas optimization for the redeem process. Getting the total balance is very expensive, since each strategy needs to check each stablecoin that it supports, and the strategy needs to check each place that it could have assets, and some of the strategies assets are not directly denominated in stables, which require further computation to get the exchange rate. Since we are doing all this work anyway in this output calculation function, we do just extra three adds to sum to a total value here and return it for use outside this function.

[L09] Mixing testing and production code

The codebase contains a few duplicated contracts with slightly different, security-relevant behaviors. Specifically:

In all cases, we expect the “Constructor” and the “Dev” contracts are intended for testing purposes only, which explains their increased flexibility. As a matter of good practice, consider documenting this in the function comments and moving them to a test directory to maintain clearer isolation between the testing and production code.

Update: Acknowledged. The Origin team states:

The issue has an easy solution with Solidity’s immutable feature, so that will be implemented once the Solidity version is upgraded.

[L10] Inconsistent interfaces

The codebase defines an IStrategy interface that is not inherited by any of the strategies. Similarly, the IVault interface is not inherited by the vault. This has introduced some inconsistencies:

Consider inheriting the interfaces whenever they are implemented and correcting these discrepancies.

Moreover, the IUniswapV2Router interface only defines the subset of the interface that is needed in the codebase. Nevertheless, it includes the unused addLiquidity function. Consider removing it.

Update: Fixed in PR#689.

[L11] Missing validation

There are currently some unvalidated assumptions in the codebase. For example:

Consider adding validation in these and all other places where assumptions are currently unchecked to reduce the chance of errors when interacting with and refactoring the contracts.

Update: Fixed in PR#632, PR#688, and PR#715.

[L12] Function selectors between VaultCore and VaultAdmin could collide

Instead of inheriting from the VaultAdmin to access to its functionality, the VaultCore contract forwards calls using delegatecall in the fallback function. This means that if a function is called that does not exist in VaultCore, the fallback function will forward this call to the VaultAdmin contract, using the context of the former.

The issue is that function selectors between the VaultCore contract and the VaultAdmin contract are not being checked for possible collision during deployment. This means that, if in the future (e.g., through a governance upgrade) an external or public function is defined in the VaultAdmin that has the same selector as one of the functions in the VaultCore contract, the VaultAdmin function will be impossible to call.

Consider checking that there are no collisions between the functions defined in the VaultCore and the VaultAdmin contracts within the deployment scripts.

Update: Acknowledged. The Origin team states:

We are planning on writing a script to check this.

[L13] Lack of event emission after sensitive actions

The following functions do not emit relevant events after executing sensitive actions.

Consider emitting events after sensitive changes take place, to facilitate tracking and notify off-chain clients following the contracts’ activity.

Update: Partially fixed in PR#677. The withdrawAll function still does not emit events.

[L14] Incomplete event emissions

When defining events with the sole purpose of showing a storage modification, it is a good practice to emit both the old value and the new value of the modified variable. Some examples are:

Additionally, the Withdrawal event in the ThreePoolStrategy contract should also emit the beneficiary address (i.e., who receives the assets).

Consider reviewing all the events that are being emitted throughout the codebase and checking that all sensitive variables are being emitted, to avoid hindering the task of off-chain services interested in these events.

[L15] Missing error messages in require statements

Some require statements are missing error messages, such as the following:

To improve the code’s readability and to help debugging issues that may arise, consider including specific and informative error messages in all require statements.

Update: Fixed in PR#662.

[L16] Lack of indexed parameters in events

Throughout the code, there are parameters in events that are not indexed. Some examples are:

Consider indexing event parameters to avoid hindering the task of off-chain services searching and filtering for specific events.

Update: Acknowledged and retained. The Origin team states:

Keeping as is to maintain backwards compatibility.

[L17] Not using safeTransfer

The Flipper contract allows users to exchange OUSD 1:1 for any of DAI, USDC, or USDT and vice versa as a low cost way to perform swaps. Although the withdraw functions use safeTransfer, none of the other transfer functions in the Flipper contracts use safeTransfer.

Consider always using safeTransfer as a best practice.

Update: Acknowledged. The Origin team states:

The flipper contract uses hard-coded token addresses, and does not support adding tokens without deploying a new contract. For the swaps, each token has the correct interface for it, with USDT in particular using their own returnless transfers. We do use safeTransfer on methods that can operate on arbitrary tokens. We’re going to keep this as is, since the focus on this contract is extremely low gas usage for small swaps.

[L18] Implicit casting

Implicit casting is used to convert the price from int256 to uint256. This could overflow if the price were negative, but the require statements should revert the function in such case, as the result would be outside this range.

Although this cannot result in overflow because of the require statements, consider using SafeCast to safely convert between different integer types as a best practice.

Update: Acknowledged and retained by the Origin team.

[L19] Unnecessary empty constructors defined

The Flipper contract defines empty constructors with no parameters, which is not necessary and only hinders code readability. According to the Solidity docs on constructors: “If there is no constructor, the contract will assume the default constructor, which is equivalent to constructor() public {}“.

To favor simplicity, consider removing all empty constructors from the codebase.

Update: Fixed in PR#646.

Notes & Additional Information

[N01] Buyback could be rebasing

The Buyback contract can receive OUSD tokens whenever the token contract rebases and it disposes of them whenever funds are allocated in the vault and it has at least $1000. Therefore, it’s possible for the contract to hold OUSD tokens during a rebase. Moreover, it does not perform any internal accounting to track its own OUSD balance, which makes it safe for rebasing. To maximize the effectiveness of the Buyback program, consider allowing the contract to opt-in to rebases.

Update: Acknowledged and retained. The Origin team states:

We’ll keep as is. By not being rebasing, this provides extra yield to user of OUSD.

[N02] Misleading comments

Throughout the code, we found several comments either misleading or inconsistent with the function implementation. Some examples are:

Consider either revising or removing misleading comments to more accurately reflect function implementations.

Update: Partially fixed in commit b80180bb5c606ea47266f186d5d232de95f72e48, where the misleading @return NatSpec comments were removed.

[N03] Withdraw funds to recipient

The Buyback contract and Flipper contract each contain mechanisms for the governor to withdraw funds to its own address. However, this mixes roles and requires additional complexity to handle the received tokens. Consider specifying a recipient address, so the governance structure can allocate the funds without having to first take possession of them.

Update: Not fixed. The Origin team state:

We are going to keep these as is. It makes it easier for humans to validate the admin transactions, and it’s one less place to fat finger a number. It would save on gas, but these admin transfers are very rare. When we do need to make them, our governor timelock can queue and atomically run multiple actions, so it’s easy enough to withdraw in one action and transfer after, all in the same transaction.

[N04] Unnecessary external calls

In the depositAll function of the ThreePoolStrategy contract, the get_virtual_price function is called against Curve’s 3Pool contract for each iteration of a for loop.

Consider instead just calling get_virtual_price once before the loop to improve efficiency.

Update: Fixed in PR#639.

[N05] Unnecessary writes to strategies mapping

The removeStrategy function removes a strategy from the vault, withdrawing all invested assets and returning them to the vault. It updates the strategyIndex depending on whether the _addr parameter exists in allStrategies. Then, if the strategyIndex exists in allStrategies, the function pops the value from the allStrategies array, and withdraws all assets from the strategy. Afterwards, the function updates the struct in the strategies mapping for _addr to set isSupported to false, regardless of whether the _addr key exists in strategies.

Consider moving the strategies mapping update into the conditional block that checks whether the _addr exists in allStrategies to avoid unnecessary writes to storage.

Update: Fixed in PR#705.

[N06] Unconventional storage slots

The Governable contract uses a similar pattern to EIP-1967 to produce pseudo-random storage slot locations. As noted in the EIP, it is conventional to introduce a fixed offset to ensure there is no known hash pre-image. Nevertheless, the current locations are chosen securely and we do not recommend changing storage locations on live contracts, so we are noting this for informational purposes.

Update: Acknowledged. In the words of the Origin team:

We are acknowledging the comment on this, and concur with you that we should continue to use the current values.

[N07] Incorrect function visibility

The allocate, rebase, and redeem functions are not called internally by the VaultCore contract. Consider setting the visibility to external instead of public.

Update: Fixed in PR#641.

[N08] Lack of explicit visibility in state variables

Throughout the codebase there are state variables and constants that are implicitly using the default visibility. Some examples are:

To favor readability, consider explicitly declaring the visibility of all state variables and constants.

Update: Partially fixed in PR#642.

[N09] Unnecessary modifier defined in function

The rebase function from the VaultCore contract uses the whenNotRebasePaused modifier and calls the _rebase internal function, which also uses this modifier.

In the interest of simplicity and avoiding redundant validations, consider removing the modifier from the rebase function.

Update: Fixed in PR#643.

[N10] Using now instead of block.timestamp

The global variable now is used in a few places within the codebase, such as in the Buyback contract and in the VaultAdmin contract. This value could be misinterpreted and has since been deprecated in Solidity v0.7.0.
Consider instead using block.timestamp to reflect that the value is a property of the block and to future-proof the codebase for newer versions of Solidity.

Update: Fixed in PR#714.

[N11] Using require to revert

The OracleRouter contract uses a require statement that always fails. To better signal the code’s intention, consider using a revert statement instead.

Update: Fixed in PR#644.

[N12] Unused variable

The calculateRedeemOutputs function defines a totalValue variable, but never uses it.

Consider removing unused variables.

Update: Fixed in PR#638.

[N13] Inconsistent coding style

The codebase does not follow a consistent style and it deviates from the recommended Solidity Style Guide. Some examples include:

Taking into consideration how much value a consistent coding style adds to the project’s readability, enforcing a standard coding style with help of linter tools such as Solhint is recommended.

Update: Acknowledged and retained by the Origin team.

[N14] Typographical errors

We have identified the following typographical errors in the codebase:

Consider correcting typographical errors in the codebase and using an IDE add-on to identify errors in the future.

Update: Fixed in commit 192e012.

Conclusions

1 critical and 5 high severity issues were found. Some changes were proposed to follow best practices and reduce the potential attack surface.

Related Posts