Liquid Pauses Operations Amid $320M Bitcoin Heist

Liquid, a Bitcoin sidechain, has paused operations after actors claiming to be 'white-hat' hackers withdrew approximately $320 million worth of BTC from its federation wallet. The withdrawal represented about 95% of the wallet's balance before the incident.

The actors reportedly contacted Blockstream, Liquid's technology provider, through signed on-chain messages and demanded that a vulnerability in Elements, the open-source software underpinning Liquid, be patched before they would return most of the Bitcoin.

Blockstream has confirmed that it received technical details from the actors, but the funds have yet to be returned. The sidechain remains paused while federation members work to fix the issue.