Hackers Siphon $320 Million Worth of Ethereum Through Solana's Wormhole Bridge

[Raevenlord]

The latest hack in the crypto space has left a burning hole in the size of $320 million in Ethereum-competitor Solana. The exploit was done through Wormhole, a DeFi project that bridges the Ethereum and Solana blockchains. Wormhole acts as a liquidity provider for the Solana blockchain, and allows users to bring their Ethereum tokens to the chain in the form of wETH (wrapped Ethereum). Essentially, Wormhole acts as a custodian for users' ETH, and issues them a Solana-compatible wETH token, with which they can then conduct operations in the blockchain. It was this bridge that was hacked, with an estimated 120K wETH tokens - with a retail value of around $320 million - being minted with nothing to back their value. So far, this is the largest bridge hack in blockchain history.

Wormhole has announced that the bug which allowed the exploit has been patched, and that they're now working on restoring both the network and the stolen ETH funds so that trust in the value of wETH doesn't collapse due to dillution. Wormhole has in the meantime posted a message on the Ethereum main chain, suggesting a $10 million reward in return for the illegally minted wETH tokens: "We noticed that you were able to exploit the Solana VAA verification and mint tokens. We would like to offer you a whitehat agreement, and present you a bug bounty of $10 million for exploit details, and returning the wETH you have minted."





Solana, another Layer-1 blockchain that aims to compete with Ethereum and has been hailed time and time again as one of the potential "Ethereum killers", has been fraught with issues and network outages in the past few months, which have tanked its value from its all-time-high of $260 per $SOL down to the current $97 price - which slumped around 12% on news of the Wormhole exploit.

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[Chaitanya]

 

[thelawnet]

I hope the hackers sold the buttcoins or meths, or whatever they are, for real money, would hate for them to lose their shirts.

Also $10 million for $320 million in untraceable CP/drug/murder money seems a really terrible deal. Like wtf kind of white hat steals $320 million?

Also I don't really follow this closely, but this 'wrapped meth' thing someone lost $1 million the other day by accidentally trying to re-wrap their crapped meth or whatever you do, and the message was clear 'sorry this is blockchain bro, immutable database, you lost your money, haha FU'.

Same applies, try being better at coding buttheads.

 

[trsttte]

"muhh crypto bad buhh!!!"

Seriously, the ammount of nonsense is is astonishing. Solana is a recent-ish crypto currency that uses both Proof os stake and proof of history as a consensus mechanism (aka no mining). It quickly rose to fame (and market cap) for being much more efficient than existing coins like Eth or BTC.

This is not the first time Solana runs into problems (teething pains? who knows), but it's an emerging coin that breaks with the current norm of mining and proof of work (btc and eth) and something that we should want to succeed.

 

[Vayra86]

"muhh crypto bad buhh!!!"

Seriously, the ammount of nonsense is is astonishing. Solana is a recent-ish crypto currency that uses both Proof os stake and proof of history as a consensus mechanism (aka no mining). It quickly rose to fame (and market cap) for being much more efficient than existing coins like Eth or BTC.

This is not the first time Solana runs into problems (teething pains? who knows), but it's an emerging coin that breaks with the current norm of mining and proof of work (btc and eth) and something that we should want to succeed.

Forever.
In.
Beta.

Unless you can name me one coin that isn't?

 

[Mescalamba]

all this misguided hate. Does anyone else understand this incoherent gibberish?

There is quite a few people, which for some reason hate crypto. Some of them are trolls, paid or free. Some are bots. And some are typical example of "Im scared of everything that I dont understand, so I hate it.", which is rather typical reaction for mankind.

Also majority of them have barely enough intellect to write in some coherent manner, if they can write at all. Its really tied together, cause low intellect prohibits understanding of written word and putting facts together, which obviously results into fear of unknown, and given they know literally nothing, they fear everything and thus hate everything.

Plus some folks missed the money bus, so they just green with envy right now.

 

[thelawnet]

all this misguided hate. Does anyone else understand this incoherent gibberish?

What's not to understand? I bought bitcoin to use on 'The Silk Road' back in the day at about $10. It was pretty bad as an experience, but the idea made sense at the time as you needed a way to facilitate illegal transactions because nobody was going to run them through Paypal or Visa or whatever.

Subsequently, the clear and logical use case of a currency used for criminality by libertarians, drug dealers, murderers, etc., turned into a get rich quick scheme, and the payment mechanism (for which it was awful in the abstract given the existence of licensed, tested, insured, reversible, trusted alternatives, but just about bearable if you were forced to by the nature of the transaction) became less and less important over time, and it became a giant ponzi scheme consuming large amounts of electricity and hardware in short supply.

As it's an unregulated speculative market which has substantially regressed in the last decade in its utility, then I'm just here to laugh when all the shills and speculators lose their shirts.

 

[mb194dc]

What's not to understand? I bought bitcoin to use on 'The Silk Road' back in the day at about $10. It was pretty bad as an experience, but the idea made sense at the time as you needed a way to facilitate illegal transactions because nobody was going to run them through Paypal or Visa or whatever.

Subsequently, the clear and logical use case of a currency used for criminality by libertarians, drug dealers, murderers, etc., turned into a get rich quick scheme, and the payment mechanism (for which it was awful in the abstract given the existence of licensed, tested, insured, reversible, trusted alternatives, but just about bearable if you were forced to by the nature of the transaction) became less and less important over time, and it became a giant ponzi scheme consuming large amounts of electricity and hardware in short supply.

As it's an unregulated speculative market which has substantially regressed in the last decade in its utility, then I'm just here to laugh when all the shills and speculators lose their shirts.

Mainly true, it's really more of a pyramid scheme than a Ponzi though. Buy sell on to someone else for more, use social media to get people in to build the pyramid. It's that simple in my view.

 

[trsttte]

the clear and logical use case of a currency used for criminality by libertarians, drug dealers, murderers, etc., turned into a get rich quick scheme

As opposed to the USD?

I guess that's all crypto discussions in a nutshell (even more so in a tech forum), you're either a crypto bro or a crypto hater, NO IN BETWEEN!

 

[Ibizadr]

Mainly true, it's really more of a pyramid scheme than a Ponzi though. Buy sell on to someone else for more, use social media to get people in to build the pyramid. It's that simple in my view.

Its a scheme for every business, even in some pills business, like buy calcitrin and your bones become if you have 18 years again. You see a bunch of schemes in your day by day, not only on crypto and Twitter.

 

[Mescalamba]

As opposed to the USD?

I guess that's all crypto discussions in a nutshell (even more so in a tech forum), you're either a crypto bro or a crypto hater, NO IN BETWEEN!

Its more like difference between people that understand crypto and those that don't. You can dislike crypto even when fully understanding it, even fear its theoretical impact, but majority of folks that "get it" is either positive or neutral about it.

Ofc vocal majority is ppl that have no clue about both crypto and FIAT.

 

[Solidstate89]

lmao

 

[the54thvoid]

The news post is about a theft of crypto. Keep the comments related to that; i.e. security, exchanges, hacking, etc.

Stop posting generic anti-crypto guff.

 

[maxfly]

How the hell did they get away with such a massive amount unnoticed?!

 

[Tsukiyomi91]

the whole system is not centralized, just like what they (cryptobros) want. Unregulated, unreliable and untraceable.

 

[TheoneandonlyMrK]

Wrapped either bridge's.

One thing I will and have dodged , it's. In the name bridge ?! IE door.

 

[Punkenjoy]

Well a Crypto is far closer to a FIAT currency than let say Gold. The fact that it's unique and encrypted doesn't means much in a world where you can spin off as many crypto as you want. In the end, the crypto is managed by a group (like central bank) and it's worth something because people have trust on them. They trust more bitcoin and Ethereum than others. Same as FIAT.

But whatever lol. I will probably get some hate there.

But anyway, isn't a good time for that crypto to Fork ? oh yeah, another thing the people managing the crypto can do when something bad happen for them. Like Ethereum and Ethereum classic. Ethereum forked and reverted back a lot of transaction when someone stole a huge amount of crypto. Since it impacted the richest people on that crypto, they forked it. But if it happen to you, you are screwed.

So maybe they are just going to fork this time?

 

[R0H1T]

You can dislike crypto even when fully understanding it, even fear its theoretical impact, but majority of folks that "get it" is either positive or neutral about it.

Except of course the end goal ~ what is it? Right now crypto is just burning fossil fuels like no tomorrow, anyone thinking it will unshackle the peons from the "evil USD" or the capitalist nature of our society is truly a dumbf*** ~ it's just made billionaires even more rich!

So let me ask again what is the end goal here?

 

[Valantar]

As opposed to the USD?

The difference is that most fiat currencies typically underpin a society and fundamentally help it work better, more easily, more smoothly in some way. Cryptocurrencies are intentionally built to be complicated, slow, impractical, and expensive, and are thus fundamentally unsuited for those types of tasks (something that's exacerbated by their massive value fluctuations thanks to their main usage being something to bet on for rich people). So while the USD is also indeed used for crime in various ways, but it can hardly be said to be a get rich quick scheme in any meaningful way.

I guess that's all crypto discussions in a nutshell (even more so in a tech forum), you're either a crypto bro or a crypto hater, NO IN BETWEEN!

Because that's what it boils down to - people evangelizing something that they've bought into and thus have a vested interest in promoting (whether consciously or unconsciously) and most of the rest who can see what a massive scam the whole thing is, and how harmful it is on som many levels.

Ofc vocal majority is ppl that have no clue about both crypto and FIAT.

I just have to point this out: you're implying that you "understand" fiat currency, yet you type it in all caps, as if it were an abbreviation? That ... doesn't indicate much of an understanding.


This is going to be my response to every NFT and crypto thread I see going forward: Folding Ideas' fantastic 2h18m (yes, it's long AF, but infinitely worth watching, and helpfully split into chapters) video on the topic.

If you're still holding onto the "haters just don't get it" line after watching that, well, congratulations: your cognitive dissonance is strong.

 

[Steevo]

There is quite a few people, which for some reason hate crypto. Some of them are trolls, paid or free. Some are bots. And some are typical example of "Im scared of everything that I dont understand, so I hate it.", which is rather typical reaction for mankind.

Also majority of them have barely enough intellect to write in some coherent manner, if they can write at all. Its really tied together, cause low intellect prohibits understanding of written word and putting facts together, which obviously results into fear of unknown, and given they know literally nothing, they fear everything and thus hate everything.

Plus some folks missed the money bus, so they just green with envy right now.

I’m fairly educated, blockchain cryptocurrency is a colossal waste of energy, resources and barely if at all provides any benefit compared to other currency beyond allowing morally questionable transactions to be more easily hidden.

I hope the US bans it and all the investors lose their investments in imaginary money and the hardware resources we keep making ewaste out of when there is already enough pressure on the silicon market.

 

[Mescalamba]

Ah, those limited small minds. Yea, waste of my time. Thanks for confirmation.

 

[Vayra86]

Ah, those limited small minds. Yea, waste of my time. Thanks for confirmation.

Some love for the small minds please.

The great minds right now seem to have an awful lot of trouble overcoming many of humanity's problems. And that includes the crypto community that calls itself a great mind. The results so far speak for themselves. The promises... yeah. The promises. All I see is yet another exponential money monster that leads to nothing but supposed wealth for those who are smarter than the next guy. I see progress at the cost of things that matter most.

I'll say it again

Forever.
In.
Beta.

 

[Paganstomp]

Ready, Kafka?

 

[TheDeeGee]

 

[r9]

There is quite a few people, which for some reason hate crypto. Some of them are trolls, paid or free. Some are bots. And some are typical example of "Im scared of everything that I dont understand, so I hate it.", which is rather typical reaction for mankind.

Also majority of them have barely enough intellect to write in some coherent manner, if they can write at all. Its really tied together, cause low intellect prohibits understanding of written word and putting facts together, which obviously results into fear of unknown, and given they know literally nothing, they fear everything and thus hate everything.

Plus some folks missed the money bus, so they just green with envy right now.

I've mined when Bitcoin came out and was still profitable to mine on GPUs then mined again when Eth came along and I can say with conviction that fart in the wind has more substance than crypto.
Exactly like last time the big players will eventually sell out and bail and everything gonna crash in matter of days and there will be a lot of people like you that "understand" crypto that will be crying crocodile tears. Good luck!

I’m fairly educated, blockchain cryptocurrency is a colossal waste of energy, resources and barely if at all provides any benefit compared to other currency beyond allowing morally questionable transactions to be more easily hidden.

I hope the US bans it and all the investors lose their investments in imaginary money and the hardware resources we keep making ewaste out of when there is already enough pressure on the silicon market.

Well said! Thank you!