Aztec probes $2m transfer from old payments product
Aztec Labs said it is investigating a potential exploit affecting a deprecated Aztec payments product from 2021.
- Aztec Labs says about $2m moved from a deprecated 2021 payments product contract on Ethereum.
- The Aztec Foundation says current contracts and AZTEC ERC20 token are unrelated to this incident.
- The new probe follows a separate Aztec Connect exploit reported only days earlier this week.
In an Aztec Labs post, the team said about $2 million was transferred from an immutable smart contract in an Etherscan transaction on June 17.
The company said the affected product was an “immutable stage 2 rollup” that was sunset in 2022. It also said Aztec Labs holds no admin keys or control over the system, meaning it cannot pause or upgrade the old contract.
Foundation says current network is separate
The Aztec Foundation said it was made aware of the possible exploit on June 17. In a Foundation post, it said there are “no links” between the deprecated product and any smart contracts tied to the current network or the AZTEC ERC20 token.
The foundation also said the product was deprecated four years ago and that Aztec Labs no longer controls the system. It directed users to Aztec Labs for updates as the team reviews the transaction and the affected contract.
Second old-product incident in days
Aztec Labs said the latest case is separate from the June 14 exploit involving Aztec Connect, another deprecated product. As previously reported by crypto.news, Aztec Connect lost $2.1 million after an old immutable smart contract was exploited.
According to an earlier crypto.news report, the Aztec Connect attack involved a verification mismatch that let unbacked balances move through Ethereum settlement records. Security firms later traced the issue to an old RollupProcessorV3 contract.
Old immutable contracts remain a risk
The new case again points to a problem facing discontinued DeFi products. Even after a product shuts down, its contracts can remain live on Ethereum. If funds stay inside immutable contracts, attackers may still look for paths to move them.
That creates a hard response problem. A live team may be able to warn users and track funds, but it may not be able to stop an old contract that has no admin controls. Aztec Labs said it will share further updates “in due course.”
For now, Aztec Labs and the Aztec Foundation are drawing a clear line between the old payments product and the current network. The main claim from both groups is that the incident concerns a deprecated system, not the active Aztec network or the AZTEC token.
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
