Sandbox Base Network Hit by Massive Security Breach, Hacker Mints 14.9 Billion Unbacked Tokens
A major security breach occurred on August 22, 2026, when an unauthorized party exploited The Sandbox's Base network smart contract and minted approximately 14.9 billion SAND tokens without proper backing.
The attacker used Layer Zero's Omnichain Fungible Token framework to create the unbacked tokens, which were then transferred to two wallet addresses.
According to cybersecurity firm Blockaid, the exploit was detected in real-time, and the genuine financial impact was significantly smaller than initially reported. The hacker extracted around 14.75 million SAND from Ethereum, yielding approximately $675,000 (80 ETH).
The Sandbox development team immediately disabled cross-chain bridges on Base and BNB Smart Chain networks and issued urgent warnings against purchasing or selling SAND on these platforms.