Balancer is suspected to have been exploited for over $70 million after staked Ethereum was transferred to a fresh wallet.
The decentralized exchange and automated market maker, Balancer, reportedly suffered a loss of $70.9 million after staked Ethereum was transferred to a new wallet. These transfers were done in three transactions, with 6,850 StakeWise Staked ETH (OSETH), 6,590 Wrapped Ether (WETH), and 4,260 Lido wstETH (wSTETH), as reported by Nansen on Monday, in an X post.
Although Balancer has not yet made an official announcement about the exploit that happened, the exploit is suspected to have occurred due to a security breach.
The exploit drove fear into the crypto market and woke up a whale that had been dormant for around 3 years and withdrew $6.5 million from the platform.
When following the Reddit thread that raises the question, Why do crypto exchanges get hacked and not banks, one user had an alarming response. A user wrote, “95% of exchange hacks are fake hacks (i.e., stolen by exchange owners). Anyone who knows anything about crypto knows it is almost impossible to hack a wallet, especially a multisig wallet that exchanges use.”
Another user wrote on Reddit that any database could be hacked, and the Greeks have proved it. He further stated:
“Currently, everything is digital or in other words, every transactions related to fiat or crypto have their footprints in some database. If that database is hacked or some script is run on bank’s server, then hacking a bank is simpler than hacking a blockchain.
However, any fiat currency has a geographical boundary. You can’t spend USD in England or spend an excessive amount of INR within India. In either cases, you will get tracked and caught in no time.”
However, with cryptocurrency comes two benefits: the anonymous nature of the blockchains and no restrictions on boundaries. So it’s tough to track but easy to spend or convert. So this gives them the convenience to hack exchanges rather than banks.
