Heco Bridge Hacker Moves $137 Million in Stolen ETH to Tornado Cash

March 24, 2024 Bitcoin.com

Highly-Anticipated Shiba Inu (SHIB) Shibarium Project Releases Beta Bridge for Public Use

July 27, 2023 The Daily Hodl

Multichain’s ‘mysterious withdrawals’ have whiffs of a ‘rug pull’ — Chainalysis

July 11, 2023 Coin Telegraph

chainalysis

Chainalysis told Cointelegraph that they were “describing it as a possible rug pull,” based on an analysis of Multichain’s spurious transactions and internal problems.

The multi-million dollar exploit of cross-chain bridge protocol Multichain could have been an internal rug pull, according to blockchain security and analytics firm Chainalysis.

“On July 6, 2023, cross-chain bridge protocol Multichain experienced unusually large, unauthorized withdrawals in what appears to be a hack or rug pull by insiders,” the firm wrote in a July 10 blog post.

The exploit has so far resulted in the loss of more than $125 million.

On July 6, @MultichainOrg experienced unusually large, unauthorized withdrawals, resulting in losses of more than $125M. It’s one of the biggest #crypto hacks on record.

Read on to learn what we know so far: https://t.co/ib2K6sIrID pic.twitter.com/BBY3iU75oB
— Chainalysis (@chainalysis) July 10, 2023

However, Chainalysis believes the exploit may have been the result of administrator keys being compromised, which some suggest means it couldy have been an “inside job.”

*Blockchain security firm SlowMist has also previously suggested the same. Source: Twitter*

In a statement to Cointelegraph, a spokesperson for Chainalysis confirmed the firm is “describing it as a possible rug pull.”

Multichain’s smart contracts use a multi-party computation (MPC) system, which is similar to a multi-signature wallet, the firm explained.

“It is possible that the attacker gained control of Multichain’s MPC keys in order to pull off this exploit,” Chainalysis said before adding:

“While it’s possible those keys were taken by an external hacker, many security experts and other analysts think this exploit could be an inside job or rug pull, due in part to recent issues suffered by Multichain.”

Chainalysis said the most obvious example of these internal issues was the disappearance of Multichain's CEO, known as “Zhaojun,” in late May. The platform also suffered delayed transactions and other technical problems resulting in Binance ending support for several of its bridged tokens on July 7.

Cointelegraph reached out to Multichain for a response to the claims but had not heard back at the time of publication.

Meanwhile, blockchain sleuths have reported more spurious Multichain token movements over the past few hours. The abnormal outflows were the Multichain Executor address draining anyToken addresses across several chains, they reported.

The Multichain Executor address has been draining anyToken addresses across many chains today and moving them all to a new EOA pic.twitter.com/gqDaXMBl96
— Spreek (@spreekaway) July 10, 2023

On July 8, stablecoin issuers Circle and Tether froze more than $65 million in assets tied to the Multichain exploit.

Chainalysis commented that it was interesting that the exploiter “did not swap out of centrally controlled assets like USDC, which can be frozen by the issuing company.”

Magazine: $3.4B of Bitcoin in a popcorn tin — The Silk Road hacker’s story

Developers Propose Cross-Chain Bridge for XRPL Network to Enhance Blockchain Interoperability

February 23, 2023 Bitcoin.com

Alameda-Funded Ren Tells Users to ‘Bridge Back to Native Chains’ as It Sunsets 1.0 Platform

December 8, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Cross-Chain Bridge Nomad Loses $190 Million Making It 2022’s Third-Largest Crypto Heist

August 2, 2022 Bitcoin.com

Injective partners with Wormhole to bring 10 new blockchains to the platform

May 26, 2022 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

“Users will soon find Wormhole integrated into the backend of the Injective Bridge whereby transferring assets from distinct EVM chains or Solana can be done with the click of a button,” Injective Labs stated.

Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Injective (INJ) has partnered with Wormhole to integrate “10 new blockchains” to its network.

Injective is a Cosmos layer-2 decentralized exchange (DEX) that offers derivatives, token swaps and sports betting prediction markets. It is also focused on interoperability via cross-chain bridging, and currently supports digital assets from Ethereum, Polkadot and IBC-enabled chains such as Cosmos.

Injective Labs, the protocol’s developers, noted in a May 25 announcement that the partnership will enable users to transfer and trade assets across any chain that is integrated with Wormhole.

“The Wormhole integration will vastly enhance Injective’s capabilities with respect to interoperability. Users will soon find Wormhole integrated into the backend of the Injective Bridge whereby transferring assets from distinct EVM chains or Solana can be done with the click of a button,” Injective Labs stated.

Injective announces new integration with @WormholeCrypto ‼️

Wormhole brings ten new chains, such as @Avalancheavax and @Solana, to Injective's already interoperable chain, making Injective the primary gateway to enter the @cosmos universe ⚛️ https://t.co/Zu8belwh7d
— Injective | Cosmos IBC | Ethereum compatible (@InjectiveLabs) May 25, 2022

Wormhole is a generic messaging protocol that interacts with different blockchains, providing services such as cross-chain application support and token bridges.

Not all of the “10 new blockchains” are named specifically. Wormhole’s website also only lists nine chain integrations which include Solana, Terra, Ethereum, Avalanche, Oasis Binance Smart Chain, Polygon, Fantom and Aurora.

With Terra falling into a heap, and Ethereum already being supported, it is unclear what the other remaining chains out of the total of 10 are.

However the project has highlighted the ability of Injective to “serve as the primary gateway for cross-chain native assets from Solana and other prominent Layer 1 chains” to enter the ecosystem.

“The options for users can extend far beyond asset transfers as well. For instance, DApps on Injective could enable seamless cross-chain trading across the Cosmos and Solana ecosystems while also being able to offer yields on Solana (or any other Wormhole supported asset).”

“Builders utilizing chains such as Avalanche, Algorand or Polygon can access assets within the broader Cosmos ecosystem via Injective,” it added.

Cosmos developers will also be able to incorporate Wormhole’s generic messaging layer and add cross-chain functionalities within their dApps.
— Wormhole (@wormholecrypto) May 25, 2022

The announcement has done little to sway the value of Injective’s native token INJ so far, with the price dropping 2.6% in the past 24 hours to sit at $2.21 at the time of writing. The token is also down 91.1% since its all-time high of $24.89 in late April 2021, according to data from CoinGecko.

cross-chain bridge