Bitcoin’s Alex Lab Hit by $4.3M Hack, Puts Up 10% Bounty to Recover Stolen Crypto
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The DeFi protocol has identified the hacker responsible.
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Major exchanges have successfully frozen the stolen assets.
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On Wednesday morning, the decentralized finance (DeFi) application ALEX Lab fell victim to a hack leading to the theft of over $4.3 million worth of various tokens. This attack is suspected to have been facilitated by a compromised private key connected to their cross-chain bridging service.
Security experts from CertiK indicated that the attacker might have gained control of a private key governing ALEX’s XLink bridge, a utility for transferring tokens between disparate blockchains. The hacker succeeded in siphoning off approximately $300,000 in bitcoin (BTC), $3.3 million in stablecoins, and $75,000 in Sugar Kingdom (SKO) tokens.
ALEX’s development team confirmed the breach through a post on X during the early European hours. They also revealed they have identified the hacker and proposed a solution offering a 10% bounty in exchange for the return of 90% of the stolen assets.
“The ALEX Lab Foundation has pinpointed the individual responsible for the breach and proposes a resolution via a bounty deal,” the developers declared, adding, “Upon compliance, further legal actions will be dropped, and law enforcement will not be involved. This offer is valid until May 18 at 0800 UTC.”
The development team reported that leading exchanges have frozen the stolen assets associated with the hacker, preventing any further potential misuse.
Private key thefts are a prevalent attack method among crypto hackers. Historical precedents include significant heists such as the $650 million Ronin breach in 2022 and Harmony’s $100 million compromise, both resulting from lax private key security.
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