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A vulnerability on Hyperbridge resulted in the loss of around $237,000 worth of bridged Polkadot (DOT) on Ethereum. According to the account described in the report, a hacker gained access to the bridged DOT token contract, enabling the minting of 1 billion tokens with an estimated value above $1.1 billion.
After minting the tokens, the attacker sold them on decentralized exchanges. The proceeds ultimately amounted to about $237,000, attributed to low liquidity available for trading the minted supply.
The report notes that the incident was isolated to bridged DOT on Ethereum. Native DOT on the Polkadot relay chain, parachains, and other assets across Hyperbridge were described as remaining secure and unaffected.
The article states that if liquidity had been sufficient, the attacker holding roughly 1 billion DOT tokens could have potentially realized more than $1 billion, given that DOT was trading around $1.17, down 4.6% over the prior 24 hours.
It also says DOT has fallen more than 68% over the last year and is nearly 98% below its November 2021 all-time high of $54.98. DOT is currently just above an all-time low price of $1.15 set in February.
The protocol’s app was reported as down for maintenance while it adds additional safeguards and works with security partners to attempt to recover the swiped funds.
The report places the incident within a broader pattern of bridge-related exploits. It cites the Ronin Network hack in 2022, in which attackers exploited its native bridge to Ethereum and stole $552 million. U.S. government agencies linked that incident to North Korea’s Lazarus hacking group.
It also references a recent exploit of Solana’s Drift Protocol, which lost more than $285 million on April 1 to a North Korean-linked hacker, adding to concerns about the security of DeFi protocols.
