Iotex confirms $2M exploit pauses chain

IoTeX said it contained a hack resulting in losses of about $2 million and paused chain operations for 24 to 48 hours to implement security upgrades.

The blockchain platform disputed on-chain estimates placing the theft at $4.3 million, confirming instead that “the exploit impact is around $2M USD (including USDC, USDT, IOTX, and WBTC).”

In an earlier statement, IoTeX acknowledged “suspicious activity involving an IoTeX token safe” and said:

“The potential loss is lower than circulating rumors suggest,”

Adding that it was coordinating with major exchanges and law enforcement to trace and freeze stolen assets.

On-chain analyst Specter reported that a compromised private key may have enabled the attacker to drain multiple contract assets including USDC, USDT, IOTX, PAYG, WBTC and BUSD, before swapping funds into ETH and bridging at least 45 ETH to Bitcoin.

Specter also noted the minting of 111 million CIOTEX tokens, suggesting the attacker briefly gained control over token issuance functions and executed a multi-step laundering process across chains.

IoTeX described the incident as a “long-planned attack by professional actors targeting multiple chains” and said it had worked swiftly with exchanges and security partners to limit further damage.