Cross-chain Protocol Synapse Bridge Prevents $8M Attack

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The developers of the cross-chain protocol Synapse Bridge have prevented a hacker from withdrawing about $8 million from the Avalanche Neutral Dollar (nUSD) metapool. The incident, which the team shared in a Discord chat, took place on November 7.

Synapse is a cross-chain bridge for moving tokens between multiple Layer 1 and Layer 2 protocols using AMM.

According to the project’s developers, the attacker tried to exploit a vulnerability using a bridge to transfer assets from Polygon (MATIC) to Avalanche (AVAX). The team was able to identify a bug in the AMM Saddle metapool contracts. The team added:

“The validators agreed to go offline to put the network on hold.”

The transaction for about $8 million was rejected. Funds will be returned to affected liquidity providers following the completion of a full audit.

The developers of the DeFi platform bZx have earlier admitted the loss of funds as a result of the hack. The preliminary damage was estimated at $55 million.

In the third quarter of 2021, hackers stole cryptocurrencies worth more than $1.1 billion. The Ethereum ecosystem was the most affected, as during the analyzed period, it lost more than $800 million as a result of 20 attacks.