Cronos Halts Blockchain Following $75M Tectonic Exploit

Cronos, the blockchain launched by Crypto.com, was shut down after an attacker exploited Tectonic lending app's thin-liquidity TONIC token.

The attacker pushed the price up roughly 100-fold in about 20 minutes, deposited the suddenly more valuable tokens and borrowed other assets against them. With a 20% collateral factor, every $100 of recognized value could support about $20 of borrowing.

Tectonic held about $121.7 million in locked assets on August 26, but that figure had fallen to roughly $3 million by Monday after the attack.

The network was halted by its validators and remains paused with no restart timetable or confirmed accounting of losses as of Monday morning.