Wormhole, the bridge token of Ethereum and Solana, losses $321M in a hack. The token allowed for the transaction between Ethereum, Solana, BSC, Polygon, Avalanche, Oasis, and Terra without the need for any exchange. This is the largest exploit of 2022 till now and included 120,000 wETH tokens. Wormhole has announced a $10 million reward for the hackers.
Matter of concern
Yet, another time there has been a problem with a smart contract bridge. The hack that happened was in the bridge between Wormhole and Solana. And it is expected that there is also some vulnerability in the Terra bridge. So, it is important they fix is asap.
About the hack
Wormhole reported that the hack happened yesterday (Feb 2), and the hacker minted 120,000 wETH on Solana and then converted the same to ETH for $254 M. After this, the funds were used to purchase BAYC NFT, SportX, Meta Capital. At the same time, there is still $44 million in Solana in the hacker’s wallet. Wormhole says that they will soon add more Ethereum to make sure wETH stays 1:1 backed.
It is important that they do a solid check to make sure other bridges aren’t affected, as reported by Certik, which is a smart contract auditing firm. And in case there is some issue, it gets fixed soon. The company has contacted the hackers via the ETH address and asked them to return the funds while keeping $10 million as a whitehat agreement. He/she will also need to send the exploit details so they can get it fixed.
The problem with bridges
It’s being seen that smart contract bridges are quite vulnerable to crypto hacks, and there is a limit to their security. This was said by Near Protocol’s co-founder recently. Even Vitalik said that same and called it a fundamental problem. In the past as well, there was a $610 million hack on the Polygon network and $80 million on the Qubit Finance bridge out of many others.
What are your thoughts as Wormhole losses $321M in the hack, the largest one yet in 2022? And do you think that we should move away from bridges and look for another solution? Let us know in the comments below. Also, if you found our content informative, do like and share it with your friends.
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