Sixth-Largest Loss In History: Multichain Loses $126M Worth Of Cryptocurrencies In Suspected Exploit

Cross-Chain Router Protocol Multichain has issued an urgent warning to its users after approximately $126 million worth of cryptocurrencies were drained from its platform.

The service has suspended operations, with all bridge transactions currently stuck on the source chains.

The company has not provided a confirmed time for the resumption of services.

"The Multichain service stopped currently, and all bridge transactions will be stuck on the source chains. There is no confirmed resume time. Please don’t use the Multichain bridging service now," Multichain stated.

The outflow was first noticed by PeckShield, a blockchain security company, which reported that Multichain had lost around $126 million worth of cryptocurrencies, making it the sixth-largest loss in the history of cross-chain bridge exploits.

PeckShield also noted that a total of approximately $1.92 billion has been stolen from cross-chain bridges over the past three years.

The asset outflow has raised questions about the security of the platform and the safety of the assets stored on it.

The funds were reportedly moved to unknown wallets, and the company is currently investigating the incident.

Also Read: Bitcoin To Potentially Climb To $125,000 By End Of 2024, Predicts Cryptocurrency Services Provider

Loki Zeng, a prominent on-chain analyst, and previous researcher at Huobi Ventures, has put forth a theory regarding the extensive asset drain from Multichain.

He hinted that the culprit behind the outflows might possess access to sections of private keys that govern Multichain’s multi-party computation wallet.

The basis for his hypothesis stems from the observation that the asset transfer spanned a considerable duration and even included a preliminary transfer of $2 in stablecoins prior to the massive withdrawals.

In the midst of the rife speculation within the cryptocurrency community regarding the nature of this breach, Fantom Foundation has stepped forward to clarify its position for those who possess Fantom tokens.

The foundation stated, “For the avoidance of doubt, FTM was never issued or managed by Multichain, so wFTM, FTM ERC-20, and FTM on the Opera [EVM network] are not affected.” 

Read Next: Circle Considers Issuing A Stablecoin In Japan Following New Legislation

Join Benzinga's Future of Crypto in NYC on Nov. 14, 2023 to stay updated on trends like AI, regulations, SEC actions & institutional adoption in the crypto space. Secure early bird discounted tickets now!