Holograph, a protocol for omnichain tokenization, fell victim to malicious actors on Thursday, who exploited the system and drained 1 billion of its native HLG tokens. This incident caused the cryptocurrency to plummet by nearly 80% in value.
In a significant breach, the attackers mined 1 billion HLG tokens and made off with tokens valued at $14.4 million. In response, the platform announced on X that they have patched the initial exploit and are actively working with exchanges to freeze the accounts of those responsible.
“The team has addressed the initial exploit and is collaborating with exchange partners to lock down the malicious accounts. An investigation has been launched, and we are coordinating with law enforcement.”
According to Etherscan data, the exploiters began draining tokens on June 13 at 9:47 am UTC, executing nine transactions. The on-chain data indicates that the ENS wallet acc01ade.eth was implicated in the hack.
Additionally, Github data suggests that the attackers were also contributors to the Holograph protocol, having made 113 contributions last year.
Holograph’s HLG Token Plummets Nearly 80%
Immediately following the hack, the price of Holograph Protocol’s native token, HLG, experienced a sharp decline. According to CoinGecko data, the token dropped from $0.014 to as low as $0.0029, marking a significant 79.4% plunge on Thursday.
Since the incident, the token has shown signs of recovery and is currently trading at $0.0063.
Additionally, Etherscan records revealed that the exploiters began converting the stolen HLG tokens into Tether stablecoin (USDT) just four hours after executing the exploit.
This breach occurred several months after the Protocol successfully concluded an $11 million strategic funding round from prominent venture capital firms. Notable participants included Andrew Kang’s Mechanism Capital and Jordi Alexander’s Selini Capital.
At the time of the funding round, Holograph announced intentions to allocate the funds towards advancing its omnichain gaming capabilities. The protocol enables game developers to tokenize assets across multiple blockchain networks.
Having launched its mainnet in 2023, Holograph has facilitated the minting of over 10 million omnichain tokens through 1.5 million unique wallets.
