Liquid Sidechain Pauses Operations After $320M Bitcoin Heist
Liquid, a Bitcoin sidechain, has paused operations after hackers claiming to be 'white hats' withdrew approximately $320 million in BTC from its federation wallet.
The incident occurred on Sunday, when Liquid announced that bridge nodes were disabled, preventing new transactions, and exchanges had halted or were preparing to halt L-BTC deposits and withdrawals.
Blockstream, Liquid's technology provider, initiated contact with the hackers through signed onchain messages. The hackers reportedly instructed Blockstream to patch the vulnerability and update every node before they would return most of the Bitcoin.
The withdrawn BTC represented roughly 95% of the wallet's approximately 4,200 BTC balance before the incident. Liquid stated that other assets issued on the network, including USDT, DePix, and real-world assets, were unaffected.