Sandbox Cross-Chain Bridge Attacked, Unbacked Tokens Created
The Sandbox's cross-chain bridge on Base and BNB Smart Chain has been attacked, resulting in the creation of unbacked SAND tokens. The studio behind The Sandbox announced that bridging to both chains has been halted since August 22, 2026.
If you hold SAND on Ethereum or Polygon, nothing changes for you as things stand. However, if your SAND sits on Base or BNB Smart Chain, it can neither be brought back over the official bridge nor traded at a reliable price.
The studio has identified and contained the vulnerability, stating that the impact amounts to less than 0.01 percent of the total SAND supply. The total supply is three billion tokens, with circulating supply standing at around 2.94 billion.
Figures on the quantity of tokens created differ by orders of magnitude, ranging from 14.9 billion to 49 billion. However, this spread is explained by the measure being used, as one figure counts tokens while the other multiplies created tokens by the last traded price and arrives at a nominal value.
The actual outflow is considerably smaller, with around 14.75 million genuine SAND drawn out of the Ethereum adapter and converted into roughly 79.74 ETH, corresponding to about $675,000 at the time.