Wanchain Sets August 6 Deadline for Cardano Bridge Hacker

Wanchain, a cross-chain bridge protocol, has publicly provided the perpetrator of its latest Cardano bridge exploit a white-hat restoration deal. The bridge was exploited on July 20, 2026, ensuing within the theft of roughly 515.2 million NIGHT tokens, valued at round $10 million.

In an in depth X put up on Thursday, Wanchain opened a communication channel to resolve the incident. The provide permits the hacker to retain 10% of the stolen NIGHT tokens as a white-hat bounty, offered they return the remaining 90% by August 6, 2026, at 12:00 UTC. If accepted, Wanchain will deal with the incident as a white-hat restoration and chorus from pursuing civil claims.

The group has engaged blockchain analytics corporations and flagged the related addresses with exchanges for monitoring. The funds may be returned to a specified Cardano handle or an Ethereum handle offered within the assertion. The hacker can talk by sending an on-chain message from the exploit pockets or emailing whitehat@wanchain.org.

How the exploit unfolded

Safety agency BlockSec’s Phalcon monitoring system first flagged the exploit on July 21. The assault unfolded quickly throughout 4 transactions in an eight-minute window. Analysts recognized the basis trigger as a non-injective signed-message encoding flaw within the TreasuryCheck validator. 

The vulnerability stemmed from uncooked concatenation of variable-length fields with out correct delimiters, permitting signature reuse, a recurring weak spot in cross-chain infrastructure. The attacker rapidly moved the stolen NIGHT tokens right into a main Cardano pockets and liquidated roughly 90% of the haul by way of decentralized exchanges and DeFi protocols on the community. On the time of the exploit, NIGHT was buying and selling round $0.01950 per token.

Wanchain acknowledged the incident, stating the Cardano-BNB Chain bridge had been quickly disabled. “We’re conscious of an incident affecting the Cardano (*6*)BNB Chain bridge… This has our full consideration,” the group stated, promising transparency and additional updates.

Crypto hacks hit file excessive in H1 2026

The incident provides to the rising record of crypto hacks in 2026. On-chain safety platform Blockaid reported that the primary half of 2026 was probably the most exploited period, with complete losses from safety incidents surpassing $1.1 billion throughout 212 verified assaults. 

Based on the report, the variety of high-threshold exploits within the first six months of 2026 was 3.4 instances increased than your complete yr of 2025. Nonetheless, general greenback losses have been decrease than the identical interval final yr, largely as a result of there was no single catastrophic breach on the dimensions of the $1.5 billion Bybit hack.

The 4 largest incidents dominated the injury: KelpDAO ($292 million) and Drift Protocol ($285 million), together with Resolv and CowSwap. Collectively, these 4 assaults accounted for roughly $707 million, or 64% of all losses through the interval. 

Blockaid additionally linked North Korean hacking teams, notably the TraderTraitor subgroup of the Lazarus Group, to the KelpDAO, Drift Protocol, and Humanity Protocol exploits. Collectively, these assaults accounted for roughly $609 million, or about 55% of complete losses within the first half of the yr.

White-hat negotiations stay controversial

Whereas Wanchain’s white-hat provide seems pragmatic, it additionally highlights deep systemic failures within the cross-chain sector. Whereas such agreements can enhance the probabilities of recovering stolen property, they’ve additionally sparked debate over whether or not bounty gives incentivize attackers to barter after an exploit.

The incident additionally underscores the persevering with safety challenges going through cross-chain infrastructure. Bridge vulnerabilities have remained one of many largest sources of losses within the digital asset business, exposing customers and liquidity suppliers to important dangers.

As investigations proceed, the end result of Wanchain’s provide could affect how future bridge exploits are dealt with, but it surely additionally highlights the necessity for stronger safety measures throughout cross-chain protocols.

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