DeFi faces another crisis! Balancer hacked for over $116 million, losses continue to grow!
Around 3:48 PM on November 3rd, East 8th District time, on-chain data monitoring platforms suddenly detected that the treasury address of Balancer, a veteran DeFi protocol, had made an unusually large transfer.
According to Etherscan, multi-chain assets including 6,587 WETH (about $24.5 million), 6,851 osETH (about $26.9 million), and 4,260 wstETH (about $19.3 million) were transferred to an external wallet.
Several on-chain analysts believe this is likely a potential vulnerability exploit or unauthorized withdrawal, rather than a routine liquidity migration. Multiple blockchain analytics providers, including Nansen, have also flagged these transactions as suspicious.
According to monitoring by blockchain security firm PeckShield, the attack is ongoing across multiple chains including Ethereum.
As of around 4:48 PM East 8th District time, the attacker address (0x54B5…30d) executed another transaction by calling function 0x8a4f75d6, and Lookonchain confirmed that the total loss had exceeded $116 million.
Mikko Ohtamaa, co-founder of Trading Strategy, pointed out that preliminary analysis indicates the root cause of the vulnerability is a flaw in the smart contract’s verification mechanism. Although not all versions of Balancer are affected, if the same vulnerability exists in older V2 forks, the total loss could rise further.
DeFi Security Remains a Challenge
This is not the first time Balancer has encountered security issues.
-
As early as 2020, the protocol suffered a loss of about $500,000 when it failed to account for the special behavior of “transfer fee” tokens, allowing attackers to manipulate pool assets via flash loans.
-
In August 2023, a vulnerability was discovered in Balancer V2’s Boosted Pool. Despite official warnings, an attack still occurred, resulting in a loss of about $1 million.
-
In September of the same year, Balancer’s frontend domain was subject to a DNS hijack, causing users to lose nearly $240,000 after signing transactions on a phishing website.
Now, the latest round of attacks has once again brought DeFi security issues to the forefront. From contract design to frontend deployment, from liquidity pool logic to cross-chain asset management, the security challenges facing Balancer seem never to have been truly resolved.
Moreover, Balancer is itself a liquidity hub protocol, so when it has problems, it’s not just affected itself. Trapped LPs, dependent aggregators, asset pools, strategy vaults—all are impacted.
The DeFi world emphasizes “trustlessness,” but in the face of repeated vulnerability exploits, what can users truly trust? After five years of development, DeFi is no longer just a niche game for geeks, but financial infrastructure managing billions of dollars. Unfortunately, even leading protocols like Balancer still cannot escape the fate of old problems persisting while new ones arise.
Balancer Responds Two Hours Later
At 17:50 East 8th District time, about two hours after the incident, Balancer updated its official Twitter: a vulnerability potentially affecting Balancer v2 pools has been discovered. Our engineering and security teams are investigating as a top priority, and as soon as more information is available, we will immediately share confirmed updates and next steps.
Bitpush is continuously tracking the progress of this incident. We will synchronize the latest developments as soon as possible, so please stay tuned.
Disclaimer: The content of this article solely reflects the author's opinion and does not represent the platform in any capacity. This article is not intended to serve as a reference for making investment decisions.
You may also like
The AI boom may follow the path of the 19th-century railway bubble, and builders may not be the ultimate winners
Goldman Sachs analyst Bobby Molavi compared the current situation to the 19th-century British railway mania: 500 companies spent more than the nation's annual income building 8,000 miles of railway, with most early investors losing out, while the real beneficiaries were the later "passengers." He pointed out that the current AI craze is driven by both debt and momentum, and that the S&P 500’s forward P/E ratio of 18x is only "a bit cheaper." Whether the builders can retain value is uncertain, and history does not offer an optimistic answer.
If Anthropic's IPO goes smoothly and the stock price rises next week, then everything remains the same for AI. Otherwise, some companies will go bankrupt.
The shrinking valuations of two major giants have triggered a chain reaction—investors are adopting more conservative revenue multiples for AI startups and are directly halting high-valuation financing for companies with zero revenue. Multiple venture capital firms have advised their portfolio companies to lower valuation expectations and to quickly build up cash reserves. Market participants warn that the outcome of Anthropic’s IPO will be a barometer for the industry: if successful, the boom will continue; if it fails, some companies may face elimination.
After the Brazilian election, political discount deepens; Morgan Stanley remains bullish on Petrobras (PBR.US), focusing on fuel pricing and dividends
Morgan Stanley still maintains its most optimistic "Overweight" rating, but has lowered its year-end 2027 target price from $31 to $25.
Corning (GLW.US) receives initial "Buy" rating from Jefferies! AI factories driving a fiber optic rush, with a potential global supply gap of up to 30%
For Corning, the recent profit growth mainly comes from the expansion of AI clusters. As the number of optical links crossing cabinets and campuses increases, customers need to deploy more optical fibers within limited conduit and cabinet space, thus driving demand for high-density optical cables and connection systems.
Crypto prices
More
