Harmony Protocol exploit mints 4B ONE, but why did ZachXBT refuse help?

The Harmony Protocol [ONE] exploit became the latest major crypto hack amid rising security breaches.

The Layer 1 blockchain confirmed the unauthorized minting of roughly 4 billion ONE. That represented about 26% of its supply.

Here is how the exploit unfolded and why investigator ZachXBT refused to track the attacker for free.

How did the Harmony Protocol exploit crash ONE?

Juiceberg first reported that the exploiter minted ONE through empty blocks. The attacker funneled 2.8 billion ONE to exchanges.

Another 115 million ONE remained available for on-chain sales. That remaining balance represented nearly 3% of the fraudulently minted supply.

Most minted tokens had reached exchanges, been sold, or remained in deposit addresses.

Meanwhile, crypto exploits had caused $12.37 million in losses during August’s first 12 days. DefiLlama had not included Harmony’s losses. ONE initially crashed more than 54%. However, its press-time decline had narrowed to 38%.

Open Interest rose sharply during the decline, suggesting traders increasingly used short leverage.

How did Harmony respond to the exploit?

Harmony has acknowledged the exploit and was working with exchanges to freeze funds. After working on patch and rollback options, they asked exchanges to block and freeze funds in four wallet addresses.

As of press time, 53% of validators had completed Harmony’s call to action, which stated,

All validators, please upgrade. This patch prevents any further minting.

The team further alerted exchanges of the 10,288 suspicious deposit transactions across 409 wallets where the fraudulent tokens landed. Harmony saw a rollback as the most favored practical solution to the security breach.

ZachXBT refuses to track—why?

While Harmony was asking for collaboration with exchanges and other partners, ZachXBT was at war with them. ZachXBT urged others on-chain not to help them for free, citing

Harmony took advantage of people who assisted during the $100M Harmony Bridge exploit by DPRK in 2022 and rewarded $0 for significant freezes which lead to LE seizures and simply said “good job”

However, ZachXBT’s take received mixed reactions from the community, with some backing while others opposed it.

A user who opposed the request and wrote,

I assisted with dozens of incidents and i don’t remember ever getting anything but recognition out of it.

Final Summary

• Harmony Protocol exploited 4 billion ONE tokens after they were fraudulently minted on empty blocks as the price crashed by more than 38%.  
• ZachXBT urges others not to help for free, as Harmony took advantage of investigators in their previous $100 million exploit.