02 Dec 2022

Ankr has confirmed an exploit and has requested a trading halt

The decentralized finance protocol has announced that it is collaborating with exchanges to halt trading of aBNB immediately.

By: Flagship Team

Ankr, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol based on the BNB Chain, has acknowledged being affected by a multi-million dollar exploit on December 1.

Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB (aBNB), a reward-bearing token for BNB (BNB) staked on the protocol, was allegedly minted by the attacker in the amount of 20 trillion.

Since then, the exploiter has obtained about 5 million USD Coin (USDC) using services like Uniswap, Tornado Cash, and various bridges to swap and obfuscate the funds.

Show Tweet from <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Seems that <a href="https://twitter.com/ankr?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ankr</a> got hacked an hour ago!<br><br>The exploiter minted 20T aBNBc and dumped it on <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/PancakeSwap?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#PancakeSwap</a>.<br><br>At present, the exploiter have successfully exchanged more than 5 million <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%24USDC&src=ctag&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">$USDC</a>.<a href="https://t.co/hF1tgNYw0t">https://t.co/hF1tgNYw0t</a> <a href="https://t.co/XIPjBi6wvs">pic.twitter.com/XIPjBi6wvs</a></p>— Lookonchain (@lookonchain) <a href="https://twitter.com/lookonchain/status/1598499855412121600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 2, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Ankr, a decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol based on the BNB Chain

The exploit is thought to have been caused by either a weakness in the protocol's smart contract or the theft of private keys.

Ankr quickly announced on Twitter that its "aBNB token has been exploited" and is currently coordinating with exchanges to halt trading of the compromised token immediately.

Show Tweet from <blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Our aBNB token has been exploited, and we are currently working with exchanges to immediately halt trading.</p>— Ankr (@ankr) <a href="https://twitter.com/ankr/status/1598503332477280256?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 2, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

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