pNetwork, a cross-chain DeFi platform, lost roughly 277 Bitcoins to the tune of $12.7 million in a recent hack. The platform confirmed on Twitter that the attacker targeted tokenized Bitcoin on the Binance Smart Chain, stating,
“Attacker was able to leverage a bug in our codebase.”
Additionally, the network confirmed that the hackers exploited the majority of the network’s collateral. However, all other bridges and funds were deemed safe. What was known so far was that the network had identified the bug and was working on a fix. As per the official statement,
“We are working on a solution for users who were affected by the attack (pBTC on BSC holders only)”
However, at this point, the impact on users was unclear. The bridges were expected to start back up in a few hours while more update was awaited from the network.
Lately, decentralized finance (DeFi) hacks have been on a rise and now account for a whopping 76% of all major hacks globally in 2021. A report by security firm AtlasVPN confirmed a combined loss of $474 million due to DeFi hacks alone in H1 2021.
Cream Finance, a crypto lending platform, had also lost approximately $18 million to a hack just last month. In August, the Poly Network heist shook the ecosystem in “the largest attack in DeFi.” It lost over $600 million from Binance Chain, Ethereum, and the Polygon network. However, the investor funds were later reported to have been recovered.
On the back of these hacks, pNetwork exclaimed that finding vulnerabilities was part of the game, as far as the DeFi ecosystem was growing. They also maintained that “returning funds is a step in that direction.” Meanwhile, pNetwork was also trying to recover the funds by offering around 12% of the hack, as bounty.
“To the black hat hacker. Although this is a long shot, we’re offering a clean $1,500,000 bounty if funds are returned.”
pNetwork has been allowing the transfer of tokenized cryptos like Bitcoin and Ethereum across different blockchains. It is estimated, that it holds a total value of over $ 192,277,600 on its network. However, post the attack, the network lost over 15% of its market cap at press time.
