Harmony ONE Token Plummets to Record Low After Massive Exploit

Harmony's ONE token plummeted to a record low after a suspected Layer 1 exploit created around 4 billion new tokens without authorization. The project has paused its bridge and pushed an emergency patch to prevent further minting.

On-chain researchers reported that the newly created tokens were sent towards cryptocurrency exchanges, with approximately 2.8 billion ONE quickly routed to exchanges. Market trackers showed about 15 billion ONE in circulation, making the additional 4 billion tokens equal roughly 27% of the previously reported circulating supply.

Harmony is working with exchanges to stop and freeze funds while evaluating rollback options. However, a rollback may not recover tokens sent to exchanges, as it could remove unauthorized tokens but not automatically recover assets already deposited or sold on centralized exchanges.

The incident has raised concerns about the scale of the reported mint and the potential impact on the ONE token's price action. Harmony has faced major security problems before, including a Horizon Bridge attack attributed to North Korea's Lazarus Group in 2022 and a separate staking bug in 2023 that improperly created roughly 146 million ONE.