Zilliqa announced on July 20, 2026, that ZIL tokens were stolen from a cold wallet belonging to one of its exchange partners. The blockchain project stated the incident is under active investigation as it works with relevant parties to determine the root cause and full extent of the breach.
In response, Zilliqa has notified all exchanges to temporarily pause ZIL deposits and withdrawals. The measure aims to prevent the stolen funds from being moved or liquidated through centralized platforms. The company emphasized that users should rely solely on official Zilliqa channels for updates and avoid unverified information.
Cold wallets, typically considered highly secure offline storage, being compromised has raised concerns in the crypto community about potential vulnerabilities in partner custody solutions. Early market reaction saw ZIL’s price decline approximately 15% before recovering partially.
Zilliqa, known for its high-throughput Layer-1 blockchain and ongoing Zilliqa 2.0 upgrades, assured the community that further verified details will be shared promptly. This incident adds to recent crypto security challenges, highlighting the persistent risks even in institutional-grade storage.
Latest Update (July 21):
As the investigation progressed, Zilliqa clarified that it has found no evidence the incident was caused by the exchange’s wallet management or operational processes. Instead, the root cause appears to be a technical issue affecting transaction signing in a specific set of legacy ZIL1 wallets. The team is verifying the precise details and plans to release a full post-mortem report with technical findings and recommended actions soon.
This is a developing story and more information will be added as the event unfolds.
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