Liquid Network Federation Wallet Drained of 4000 BTC in Alleged White-Hat Exploit Exposing L-BTC Minting Flaw
On September 7, the Liquid Network sidechain suffered a major incident where its Federation wallet lost approximately 4000 Bitcoin, worth around $320 million or 2.1 billion RMB, leaving only 200 BTC behind. The funds were moved through the authorized SideSwap settlement platform using PAK keys without any reported key compromise. Liquid officials described the actor as a claimed white-hat hacker intending to return assets for a fee, but security experts point to a critical vulnerability allowing unauthorized L-BTC minting that could bypass the 1:1 Bitcoin backing mechanism. The network has halted all new transactions while federation members work on remediation, affecting major platforms including BTSE, Bitfinex, and BitMEX. This event aligns with a broader 2026 trend where attackers target protocol-level asset issuance rather than individual keys, as seen in recent Coldcard RNG flaws and other incidents totaling $972 million in crypto thefts. The case underscores weaknesses in multi-signature federation validation and cross-chain anchoring that go beyond traditional smart contract bugs.
安全客Sep 8, 2026Translated from Chinese