Crypto Projects Hit with Three Simultaneous Hacks Worth Over $11 Million
On September 24, three cryptocurrency projects were hacked in quick succession, resulting in combined losses of over $11 million. The attacks targeted different parts of crypto infrastructure, including cross-chain bridges and private keys.
The first project to be hit was Payy Network, which provides on-chain payroll and treasury management services. Its bridge to Ethereum was compromised, prompting the team to halt the network entirely. According to Specter, an onchain researcher, suspicious transactions were detected from the Payy Network bridge, with the attacker initially obtaining funds through privacy protocol Railgun. The stolen $1.8 million in USDC was then swapped for Ethereum.
Payy Network later confirmed that the attacker had completely drained the bridge balance, which consisted of non-custodial deposits belonging to Payy Network and Payy Wallet users. However, the cause of the exploit remains unknown. Duelbits, a crypto gambling and betting platform, was the next target, with an estimated $7 million in losses. A compromised private key is believed to have caused the incident.
The third affected project was Meter.io, which suffered from unbacked token minting due to a block verification flaw. The attacker created around $2.3 million worth of assets and sold them through decentralized exchange PancakeSwap. The sale triggered sharp declines in Meter-related tokens, with MTR losing nearly 80% of its value and MTRG falling by about 75%.