Cronos Network Halted After $75M DeFi Exploit

A major exploit targeting Tectonic, a DeFi lending protocol on the Cronos network, has led to a network-wide halt.

The attacker exploited TONIC, the illiquid governance token of Tectonic, by inflating its price nearly 100-fold in about 20 minutes. This artificially inflated value allowed the attacker to post TONIC as collateral and borrow large amounts of harder assets from Tectonic's lending pools, totaling an estimated $75 million.

The funds were transferred across a bridge to Ethereum, but validators halted block production on Cronos before approximately $6.29 million made it off the network.