BNB Chain suspends network after $100 million cross-chain bridge exploit
The blockchain of Binance was shut down on october 6th as a result of a problem with its cross-chain bridge, and hackers stole an estimated $100 million worth of cryptocurrency.
Initial reports from the BNB Chain’s official Twitter account suggested that the brief delay was the result of anomalous activity on the blockchain; however, this was subsequently revealed to be the result of a potential exploit. According to an update from Binance, the blockchain was undergoing maintenance, which prevented any deposits or withdrawals.
On-chain analytics revealed that claimed attackers allegedly used two million BNB, the chain’s native coin, with a market value of around $600 million, according to earlier Twitter rumors.
A BNB Chain developer later acknowledged the existence of the hack on Reddit and stated that the value of the attack is initially estimated to be between $100 million and $110 million, with about $7 million frozen.
While reassuring the public that its systems are controlled and customer assets are safe while it investigates the vulnerability, BNB Chain claimed that the hack, which was used on the BSC Token Hub, created “additional BNB.”
Before the formal disclosures, Twitter users conducted an initial on-chain analysis that revealed the attacker used the token hub to claim a reward of one million BNB before putting the remaining funds into the decentralized finance (DeFi) lending platform Venus Protocol.
BNB Smart Chain (BSC), formerly known as Binance Smart Chain. Smart contracts and decentralized applications are supported (DApps). BSC coexists with the BNB Chain, formerly known as the Binance Chain. While the second one allows for a high transaction volume with a 3-second block time, the first one supports smart contracts. Together, the two blockchains make up Binance Chain.
The native cryptocurrency of BNB Beacon Chain, BNB, as well as BEP20 tokens is supported by BNB Smart Chain. A consensus known as proof-of-stake (PoS) is used in the blockchain. Users can stake BNB to become validators, to be more precise. Transaction fees will be paid to validators for each block that is verified.
