Multichain Confirms Attack on Fantom, Moonriver, and Dogechain Bridges

• Developers of Multichain have confirmed an exploit that affected user-provided tokens, resulting in a loss of over $130 million.
• A total of approximately $130 million worth of different tokens were drained through bridges on Multichain’s Fantom, Moonriver, and Dogechain blockchain networks.
• The native token of Multichain, MULTI, experienced a drop of around 20% from $3 to $2.41.

The hack attack on Multichain, which shook the cryptocurrency market, prompted the development team to issue a statement confirming the attack and warning users to exercise caution.

Multichain Issues Statement on the Attacks

Developers of the cross-chain router Multichain confirmed in a statement today that they had identified an exploit affecting user-provided tokens, resulting in a loss of $130 million and urged users to refrain from using the service. The developers stated that the team is currently investigating the issue and added:

“It is recommended that you suspend the use of Multichain services and cancel all confirmations of Multichain-related contracts. Multichain service is currently suspended, and all bridge operations will remain stuck on source chains. No confirmed timeline.”

Bridges like Multichain enable token transfers between different networks. They are a critical yet highly vulnerable component of the crypto ecosystem, with bridge-related attacks resulting in a loss of $2.66 billion according to DeFiLlama.

On Thursday, Multichain experienced a drain of different tokens worth approximately $130 million through bridges on the Fantom, Moonriver, and Dogechain blockchain networks.

According to on-chain data, the largest stolen amounts were $62 million of USD Coin (USDC), $31 million of wrapped Bitcoin (wBTC), and $13 million of wrapped Ethereum (wETH). The stolen tokens have not been sent to exchanges yet and have not passed through mixing services like Tornado Cash.

Other affected tokens include 5 million DAI, 910,000 UNIDX ($3.3 million), 491,000 LINK ($3 million), 2.5 million USDT, 9.7 million WOO ($2.1 million), 1.3 million ICE ($1.8 million), 1.36 million CRV ($1 million), 134 YFI ($914,000), and 502,000 TUSD.

Fantom (FTM) also experienced a drop of over 10% even in an environment where concerns were addressed among community members. The Fantom Foundation stated:

“To be clear, FTM was never minted or managed by Multichain, so wFTM, FTM ERC-20, and FTM on Opera were not affected.”

Prices Drop upon Discovery of the Hack

At the time the allegations of the hack attack surfaced, the native token of Multichain, MULTI, was trading at $3 before dropping to $2.41, marking a decrease of around 20%.

Fantom was another affected project, with FTM token price dropping over 10% from $0.29 to below $0.26. The Fantom team acknowledged the issue but the token continued to face significant selling pressure.

The MOVR token of Moonriver experienced a 7% drop from $5.79 to $5.37.

The token of Dogechain, DOGE, did not witness a significant price drop but experienced a slight decrease of around 3% from $0.066 to $0.065.

During these events, the price of Bitcoin dropped to as low as $29,701 before experiencing a slight recovery. The current Bitcoin price is $30,138.