Hedera blockchain undergoing technical irregularities, HBAR Foundation says

The HBAR Foundation, the organization behind the Hedera blockchain, said network irregularities are affecting various Hedera decentralized applications (dApps) and their users.

Hashport, a bridge project, said it temporarily paused services due to the smart contract irregularities on Hedera. Yet another project, Pangolin, a decentralized exchange in the Hedera ecosystem, advised users to withdraw liquidity from the platform.

“Due to some Hedera network irregularities, Hashport has paused their bridge, and we’d encourage anyone with HTS tokens in Pangolin Pools and Farms to withdraw immediately. This is a time critical moment, so we’ll update as soon as we have more information,” Pangolin said in a tweet.

The HBAR Foundation said it’s working with affected partners and monitoring the situation to resolve the issue.

Exploit fears

SaucerSwap Labs, a DeFi project on Hedera, claimed there may be an ongoing exploit currently impacting the network. The exploit, according to SaucerSwap, targets the decompiling process in smart contracts.

The HBAR Foundation didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the possibility of an exploit. 

SaucerSwap further alleged that an unknown attacker has already targeted Pangolin and HeliSwap decentralized exchange pools containing wrapped assets, but it was not able to clarify if any tokens had been stolen.

“An ongoing exploit have hit the Hedera network this morning. The exploit is targeting the decompiling process in smart contracts. At time of writing attackers have hit Pangolin and HeliSwap pools containing wrapped assets,” SaucerSwap noted.

In the context of smart contracts, decompiling is the process of converting compiled bytecode back into its original human-readable code. Decompiling can be used to analyze and understand the behavior of a smart contract. However, it can also be used by malicious actors to gain unauthorized access or manipulate the smart contract. Still, the exact nature of the alleged exploit remains unclear.