Cronos halts network after Tectonic exploit involving estimated $75M

Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek said the company’s app and exchange were unaffected by the Tectonic breach and continued operating normally.

Cronos halted its blockchain after an exploit targeting decentralized lending protocol Tectonic involved an estimated $75 million, most of which remains on the Cronos network at the time of writing. 

On Sunday, Cronos said it identified an exploit in Tectonic and halted the network, promising updates. Tectonic separately warned users not to interact with the protocol while it investigated. Neither project has confirmed the cause or loss, and no restart timeline had been announced at publication.

Researcher Weilin Li said the attacker exploited TONIC’s 20% collateral factor and thin liquidity, pumping the governance token’s price 100-fold within 20 minutes before borrowing other assets. Li described it as a “Mango-market style” pump-and-borrow attack. 

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