Sandbox Hacked for $718M as Hacker Mints 14.9B SAND Tokens

The Sandbox gaming project suffered a significant exploit after a hacker compromised its cross-chain bridge, minting 14.9 billion SAND tokens worth approximately $718 million on Base and BNB Smart Chain.

Security firm PeckShield reported the issue, stating that the attacker used administrative permissions to mint unbacked SAND tokens across two wallet addresses.

The Sandbox team downplayed the hack, noting that it was isolated on the Base chain. However, they cautioned users against dealing with SAND tokens on Base or BSC chains and disabled movement and redemption of SAND between these networks and others.

The incident adds to a growing list of exploits and crypto losses this year, with nearly $400 million lost in the past 90 days and over $1.6 billion lost on a year-on-year basis.