Liquid Sidechain Halted After $320M in BTC Allegedly Stolen by 'White Hats'

The Liquid sidechain has temporarily halted operations after losing approximately $320 million worth of BTC due to an alleged security breach. The federation governing the network claims that 'white-hat' hackers moved around 4,000 BTC, which is roughly 95% of the federation's total balance.

Blockstream, the technology provider behind Liquid, attempted to communicate with the actors through signed on-chain messages and PGP messaging. They reportedly agreed to return most of the Bitcoin after a patch was implemented and all nodes were updated.

Liquid has disabled bridge nodes and halted new L-BTC deposits and withdrawals as a precautionary measure until the funds are returned. This disruption is specific to the bridging mechanism and does not affect other assets issued on the network, such as USDT and DePix.