Report: Binance Halts EGLD Network Following $1.65M Loot

Binance has suspended all withdrawal and deposit functions of the Elrond (EGLD) network on its platform after a hacker attack. According to a report on CoinQuora, the perpetrator made away with $1.65 million worth of EGLD tokens.

The declaration happened on the morning of January 8, 2022, through the exchange’s official Chinese page explaining the necessity of the action. 

The attack

Through his Twitter page, Wu Blockchain, crypto journalist Colin Wu was the first to announce the hack on social media, disclosing the EGLD tokens loot equivalent to $1.65 million at the time of publication. “There was a security breach in Elrond, an L1 network. Hackers obtained nearly $1.65 million EGLD for free and sold them through Maiar DEX, resulting in a 92% drop. At present, the official has suspended DEX and related APIs,” read the tweet.

Not disclosing the exact source of the funds, a crypto analyst on Twitter notes that three newly created cryptocurrency wallets collecting 800K, 400K, and 450K EGLD tokens, respectively, executed the attack on the EGLD network following the deployment of a smart contract.

“Tonight, something that I will call an attack happened on Maiar Exchange (imho). EGLD Price go to hell at 5$, then Maiar DEX was stopped,” read the tweet from the Twitter handle @Foudres. According to @Foudres, following the smart contract deployment, the hackers called a method “Withdraw” and received more than 1600K EGLD.

Per the report, the hackers went on to sell their grab on Maiar decentralized exchange. In conformity to the supply-demand relationship, the sale sent EGLD token down a 92% collapse. CoinQuora records that Maiar has also suspended decentralized exchange and related API functionalities. To make the collapse clearer, @Foudres attached a trading chart for EGLD/USDC, which was a rather horrendous display that sparked different comments from followers.

“Automated market maker is going crazy because of more supply and less demand. Everything is like a scam in crypto right now,” tweeted @ShagunC53448085, and “Wild Wild West” tweeted @nomorenoise3 in humorous response to @Foudres.

Binance on Restoring Normalcy

Poised to resolve the issue so network operations can continue, Binance has revealed that interventions were underway, citing active communication between them and the EGLD project heads. “We will restore both deposit and withdrawal functions once the EGLD network is stable,” read the official announcement from Binance Exchange.

At the time of this writing, EGLD is trading at $67.49 on CoinGecko, an 11% drop from its price right before the attack. With a 24-hour trading volume of $48,960,268, EGLD price is down -0.4% in the last 24 hours.