Griffin AI’s native token $GAIN has suffered a devastating exploit, sending shockwaves through its community. The token price crashed by more than 84% in just 24 hours, dropping from around $0.16 to nearly $0.017. The sudden plunge wiped out millions in market value and shook investor confidence.
CertiK, a blockchain security firm, announced that the attacker had made a counterfeit LayerZero Peer on Ethereum. This enabled them to issue 5 billion fake GAIN tokens that were subsequently bridged to Binance Smart Chain (BSC).
Once on BSC, the attacker liquidated the tokens for almost $3 million. After securing the funds, they bridged the profits back to Ethereum and laundered them through Tornado Cash, a crypto mixing service that is popularly used to hide stolen funds.
Lookonchain tracks stolen funds
On-chain analytics platform Lookonchain also confirmed the attacker’s moves, noting that 2,956 BNB (worth around $3 million) was swapped during the exploit. The funds were later converted into Ethereum (ETH) before being funneled into Tornado Cash.
Lookonchain also provided several wallet addresses related to the hack, such as 0x107E83E…, 0xB31BDD…, and so on. Such addresses are now tagged as suspicious, but it is not clear that the funds will be recovered, considering the use of privacy tools.
Market impact and price crash
The hack severely affected the price and liquidity of $GAIN. The trading volume of the token increased over 400% in the hours after the exploit, with the token experiencing panic selling and arbitrage trading.
According to CoinMarketCap data, the market capitalization of $GAIN also dropped by almost 81.66% to $4.6 million in a day. This sharp fall is an indication of the dilution of the 5 billion minted tokens as well as the loss of investor confidence.
The Griffin AI exploit highlights the fact that cross-chain bridges and token minting vulnerabilities are very risky. Having cost millions and destroyed trust, the incident is a lesson to both investors and developers: in crypto, a single exploit can kill trust in a single night.
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