Hackers drain $320M in Bitcoin from Liquid Network, claim they're the good guys
Attackers withdrew about 4,000 BTC (~$320M) from Liquid Network's federation wallet via a SideSwap peg-out, claiming whitehat status.
Hackers drained roughly $320 million in Bitcoin — about 4,000 BTC, 95% of holdings — from the federation wallet backing Blockstream's Liquid Network sidechain. The withdrawal occurred through SideSwap using its Peg-out Authorization Key (PAK), yet no PAK appears to have been compromised, and the exact mechanism remains under investigation. The actors embedded an on-chain message identifying themselves as whitehats, asked Blockstream to patch federation nodes first, and promised to return most of the funds after fixes are confirmed. Liquid disabled its bridge nodes and asked exchanges to suspend L-BTC deposits and withdrawals; other Liquid assets and the Bitcoin network were unaffected.
- ~4,000 BTC (~$320M) drained, leaving the federation wallet at ~5% of prior holdings.
- Funds moved via SideSwap peg-out using a PAK, but no key was found compromised.
- Perpetrators claim whitehat status and promise to return most BTC after nodes are patched.
- Liquid disabled bridge nodes; exchanges asked to suspend L-BTC deposits and withdrawals.
- Products
- Liquid NetworkL-BTC
- Victims
- Liquid NetworkBlockstream
- Organizations
- Blockstream
From the original article
2 min read at theregister.comSelf-described white hats promise to return 'most' of the 4,000 BTC once the vulnerability is fixed
By Carly Page · theregister.com
A short excerpt; the article and its images belong to the publisher. Summary, key facts and assessment above are AI-written from the article and can be wrong.