Cronos halts network after Tectonic exploit involving estimated $75M

Cronos halted its blockchain after an exploit targeting decentralized lending protocol Tectonic involved an estimated $75 million, most of which remains on the Cronos network at the time of writing. 

On Sunday, Cronos said it identified an exploit in Tectonic and halted the network, promising updates. Tectonic separately warned users not to interact with the protocol while it investigated. Neither project has confirmed the cause or loss, and no restart timeline had been announced at publication.

Researcher Weilin Li said the attacker exploited TONIC’s 20% collateral factor and thin liquidity, pumping the governance token’s price 100-fold within 20 minutes before borrowing other assets. Li described it as a “Mango-market style” pump-and-borrow attack. 

Li initially estimated $66 million was affected. He said the attacker bridged about $6 million to Ethereum before the halt, leaving $60 million on Cronos. Li later identified another attacker-controlled address holding about $8 million, bringing his estimated loss to roughly $75 million. 

Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said the company’s app and exchange were unaffected and operating normally, adding that funds there were safe. 

Cronos and Tectonic have not said whether they will restrict the attacker’s addresses, recover the assets or compensate affected users. Cointelegraph contacted both projects and Crypto.com for comment. 

Related: Galaxy puts Coldcard hack losses at 1,789 BTC, with 87% unmoved