Удар по токену FLOW: хакерская атака на $3,9 млн вызывает обвал на 40% Headline: Blow to FLOW Token: $3.9 Million Hacker Attack Causes 40% Collapse

On December 27, the price of the L1 blockchain token Flow (FLOW) plummeted by 40%, falling from $0.17 to $0.1. This decline was triggered by an attack resulting in losses of $3.9 million.

As of the time of writing, the asset has rebounded to $0.12.

Alex Smirnov, the founder of the cross-chain protocol deBridge, called on the validators of the Flow blockchain to temporarily suspend network operations.

His suggestion came in response to the controversial proposal from the Flow Foundation to completely revert the blockchain to mitigate the effects of the hack. This decision could potentially create a double-spending scenario for users of deBridge—one of the key bridges for Flow.

Following a wave of criticism, the nonprofit organization released an update stating that it had devised a new recovery plan without reverting the network.

The incident was first highlighted by a user with the handle Wazz. According to him, the attacker issued 5 million FLOW and sold them, draining the liquidity pools. It is suspected that the attacker compromised private keys.

Later, the Flow team reported on the attack. Initially, the developers announced an investigation into a «potential security incident,» but subsequently confirmed Wazz’s suspicions.

«The attacker exploited a vulnerability in the transaction execution layer of Flow and withdrew assets worth approximately $3.9 million from the network before validators coordinated to stop the operation. Importantly, the attack did not affect user funds,» the statement read.

The hacker primarily drained assets through bridges such as Celer, Debridge, Relay, and Stargate, while also laundering coins via mixers THORChain and Chainflip. The addresses involved have been identified and tagged on the blockchain.

The developers have already released an update to fix the vulnerability. However, the network is currently operating in a limited mode. The blockchain will later be restarted, reverting to its state prior to the incident.

Flow is a Layer 1 network designed for launching NFTs and deploying gaming applications. The project enables the creation of dapps, digital collectibles, and metaverses.

The attack on the protocol and the drop in the token price prompted several exchanges, including South Korean platforms Upbit and Bithumb, to temporarily suspend deposits for FLOW.

As a reminder, in December, the prediction platform Polymarket confirmed that several users were affected by a hack related to a vulnerability in a third-party provider.