Hit & Run

The Nomad cross-chain bridge is the most recent victim of the cruel bear market. The exploit allowed hackers and some “white hat friends” to drain almost every asset on the bridge. 

• The first sign of concern came at around 9:32 pm UTC when someone was able to remove 100 Wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC) worth around $2.3 million from the bridge. 
• Exploiters removed tokens from the bridge in an unusual fashion. Etherscan shows that each stolen token was removed in nearly equivalent denominations. 
• At 11:35 pm UTC, the Nomad team announced that they were aware of the risk, adding that they were “currently investigating the incident”. 
• Nomad reported in an email to Cointelegraph that at least some of the people who took out funds were acting as “white hat friends” to protect the crypto from getting into the wrong hands. 
• At the time of writing, at least one person acting as a white hat hacker has come forward. The user known as ‘Notifi Bot’ on Twitter has reached out to the official Nomad team in a tweet stating, “This is a white hack. I plan to return the funds”. 

As a result of the exploit, almost the entire $190.7 million that sat within the bridge has been compromised, and according to DeFi Llama, only $11,173 worth of assets now remains on the Nomad wallet.

For a synopsis of how the bridge was exploited, check out the Twitter thread by @Samczsun here.