- Ankr confirms that the platform had been targeted by a multi-million dollar exploit.
- Reportedly, aBNBc was allegedly minted by the attacker in the amount of 20T.
Ankr, the blockchain-based decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol, has revealed that the platform has been targeted by a massive multi-million dollar exploit on Thursday. According to a recent tweet from Ankr, its “aBNB token has been exploited” and the platform is currently working with various exchanges to quickly suspend trade of the compromised token.
Reportedly, Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB (aBNBc), a reward-bearing token for BNB staked on the protocol, was allegedly minted by the attacker in the amount of 20 trillion. Since then, the exploiter has successfully obtained about 5 million USD Coin (USDC) by using the services like Uniswap, Tornado Cash, and various bridges to swap the funds.
A New Victim for Hackers
The exploit is assumed to have been caused by either a fault in the protocol’s smart contract or a compromise of private keys. Furtherly, after the exploit, aBNBc witnessed a sudden price drop. The reward-bearing token has decreased by nearly 99.51%, and it is currently trading at around $1.49, as per CMC.
However, following the exploit, Ankr stated on Twitter by admitting that there is no risk to any underlying assets on Ankr Staking currently, and all infrastructure services are unaffected.
Earlier, the BNB chain introduced the liquid staking feature via Ankr. Through the allocation of BNB tokens to the liquid staking agreement and the acquisition of aBNBc, users were able to earn interest.
