Hackers have stolen approximately $600 million in cryptocurrencies from a decentralized financial network. This is one of the biggest heists against the digital asset market.Poly Network, which connects some of the most popular digital ledgers in the world, stated Tuesday that hackers had exploited a flaw in its system and stolen thousands of crypto tokens. This attack, which would be the biggest ever on a crypto venture and on par with breaches at Mt. Gox.The hack was a setback for supporters of decentralized financial technology, or DeFi. This is one of the fastest-growing areas in the booming cryptocurrency market. This hack also showed the lack of protections for investors and consumers in a market that has only minimal oversight by financial regulators.Poly Network developed a protocol that allows token holders to move tokens from one blockchain to another. Binance Chain and Ethereum are two of the most popular blockchains in the world. The coins offered to users as incentives run on different technologies.Investors cannot move tokens to another blockchain to trade or use as collateral in other investments.The goal of the network is to allow users to trade digital assets directly between themselves, without intermediaries such as clearinghouses or exchanges. Many projects are aiming to be completely decentralized.AdvertisementAccording to the network, the hacker accessed the ledgers to transfer money and exploited a weakness in Poly Networks contract calls. This type of test is not intended for publication on the blockchain.According to Poly Network wallet addresses, the tokens were worth approximately $600 million before the hack. They included more than $270million on the Ethereum blockchain, $250million on the Binance Smart chain, and $84million on the Polygon network.Etherscan showed that the hacker had stolen alt-coins like Binance Coin and ether, as well as dozens smaller tokens like Shiba Inu and Matic. As news spread about the theft, investors began selling cryptocurrencies and the dollar value of the stolen coins fell to $394 million.Poly Network called upon groups known as miners to process transactions and block transfers. It stated that it will pursue legal action and urged hackers to return their assets.Changpeng Zhao was the chief executive at Binance. He said that his company was aware about the incident. He stated that while Binance's blockchain is not under control, his company was working with all security partners to help prevent it from happening.There are no guarantees. He said that we will do our best to help as many people as possible.Chief technical officer of stablecoin company Tether Paolo Ardoino stated that the group had frozen approximately $33 million worth its tokens which were on the Poly Network. According to Etherscan, a substantial portion was also held in USD Coin, which is operated by Circle, a payments service company. Circle did not respond immediately to a request for comment.Gary Gensler is the chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission (US markets regulator) and had asked lawmakers to increase the power of watchdogs to protect investors against illicit activity on DeFi platforms.2021 The Financial Times Ltd. All Rights Reserved.
