Cronos Halted After $75M Tectonic Exploit

Cronos, a blockchain closely tied to Crypto.com, halted its entire network on Sunday after an attacker exploited Tectonic, the largest decentralized lending protocol on the platform. The incident resulted in estimated losses of around $75 million.

The exploit centered on TONIC, the native token of Tectonic, which had only about $1.34 million in liquidity and approximately $11,000 in daily trading volume before the attack. This made it vulnerable to significant price swings. The attacker drove TONIC's price roughly 100 times higher within about 20 minutes.

The inflated tokens were then deposited into Tectonic as collateral, allowing the attacker to borrow more valuable assets against them. TONIC carried a 20% collateral factor, meaning $100 worth of recognized collateral could support around $20 in borrowing.