$320M Liquid Network Heist Ends with Mysterious Whitehat Claim

The Liquid Network, a Bitcoin sidechain developed by Blockstream, suffered a significant security incident on September 6, 2026. Approximately $320 million worth of BTC was withdrawn from the network's federation wallet in two separate transactions, one at 14:06 UTC and another four hours later.

The withdrawals were made to an entirely new address that had never been used before, and a message was left on the blockchain stating 'we are whitehats. contact us on chain.' The funds sent back to Liquid's own address was only 0.00001 BTC, leaving nearly all of the remaining coins untouched.

Liquid's documentation states that only a federation member can burn tokens, and a destination list is used as a safeguard to ensure the federation remains in control of the BTC held by the network.