- Cryptocurrency exchange paused withdrawals due to the Ankr hack.
- The hacker minted 20 trillion aBNBc tokens and swapped them for BNB coins.
- The attacker used Uniswap and Tornado Crash to convert the coins into $5 million USDC.
Leading cryptocurrency exchange Binance CEO, Changpeng Zhao has announced on Twitter that Binance paused withdrawals temporarily after “possible hacks” on web3 operator Ankr and Hay.
The exchange founder also shared that after the initial analysis it was concluded that the developer private key was hacked and the hacker further updated the smart contract to a malicious one.
Zhao added that while pausing withdrawals on Binance for a couple of hours, it froze about $3 million that the hackers deposited to the exchange.
Due to a bug in its code that enabled unlimited minting of the aBNBc token, the first ‘node-as-a-service’ platform has faced a multi-million dollar loss.
According to blockchain security specialist PeckShield Inc., the hacker exploited a software bug to mint 20 trillion Ankr Reward Bearing Staked BNB, thereafter swapping them into BNB coins.
Data from CoinGecko indicates that aBNBc lost its value as liquidity pools on PancakeSwap and ApeSwap drained out the token. Uniswap and Tornado Crash are reported to have been used to get rid of the digital trail and convert the BNB tokens into $5 million USDC.
The aBNBc token gathers value from a link in association with Binance Coin. It serves to enable ways of earning for Binance Coin holders. Ankr, which has roughly $123 million worth of assets deposited to the protocol, addressed its community,
All underlying assets on Ankr Staking are safe at this time, and all infrastructure services are unaffected. We are currently drafting a plan and we are committed to compensating affected users.
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