BNB Smart Chain paused on Thursday evening after detecting a “potential exploit.”
Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao later confirmed the issue on Twitter, saying, “An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB.” The BSC Token Hub impacted is the cross-chain bridge between the BNB Beacon Chain and the BNB Chain, he added.
“The issue is contained now,” CZ wrote. “Your funds are safe.”
An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 6, 2022
An exploit on a cross-chain bridge, BSC Token Hub, resulted in extra BNB. We have asked all validators to temporarily suspend BSC. The issue is contained now. Your funds are safe. We apologize for the inconvenience and will provide further updates accordingly.
“This is an isolated issue on BSC,” a Binance representative told Fortune.
And CZ echoed the same. “The exploit happened with a bridge on the DeFi blockchain. It’s not related to the CEX. The community and teams moved quickly to contain it. That’s pretty much it. All the info is public,” he told Fortune.
CZ also pointed to a Reddit post with more details of the exploit, which noted an initial estimate of funds stolen ranging from $100 million to $110 million, adding that an estimated $7 million had been frozen.
The current impact estimate is around $100m USD equvilent, about a quarter of the last BNB burn.
— CZ 🔶 BNB (@cz_binance) October 7, 2022
The current impact estimate is around $100m USD equvilent, about a quarter of the last BNB burn.
In response to a request for comment, the BSC Hub and BNB Chain teams referred Fortune to the Reddit post cited by CZ.
Cross-chain bridge hacks are extremely common. Case in point: About $2 billion in cryptocurrency has been stolen in cross-chain bridge hacks just this year.
Many on crypto Twitter also pointed this out: “Bridges are the weakness.”
That confirms it is a bridge exploit.
— Adam Cochran (adamscochran.eth) (@adamscochran) October 6, 2022
Yet again, bridges are the weakness. https://t.co/ANv6ipOE9Y
That confirms it is a bridge exploit.
Yet again, bridges are the weakness. https://t.co/ANv6ipOE9Y
At 2:53 a.m. ET, the BNB Chain team tweeted that the chain is now “running OK.”
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