Cronos Network Halted After $75M Exploit on Lending Protocol Tectonic

Cronos, the layer-one blockchain developed by Crypto.com, temporarily suspended network operations following an exploit on its lending protocol Tectonic. The attack resulted in approximately $75 million in crypto assets being illicitly borrowed.

The attacker manipulated the price of TONIC, a low-liquidity token native to the Cronos ecosystem, inflating it by roughly 100 times using a flash loan or large buy orders on a decentralized exchange.

This artificially inflated collateral was then used to borrow approximately $75 million in various assets from the Tectonic protocol. The majority of the borrowed funds remained on the Cronos network, but a portion was bridged to Ethereum before the network halt was implemented.