Bitcoin
Liquid sidechain halted after self-described white hats take 4,000 Bitcoin
Roughly $320 million in Bitcoin was withdrawn from Liquid Network by actors promising to return funds once an Elements bug is patched.
The Liquid Network sidechain suspended bridge operations after actors identifying themselves as white-hat hackers withdrew approximately 4,000 BTC, valued at $320 million, from its federation wallet. The transaction drained roughly 95% of the wallet's 4,200 BTC balance used to back L-BTC. Other assets hosted on Liquid, including USDT, DePix, and tokenized real-world assets, were unaffected.
Following the withdrawal, bridge nodes were taken offline to stop new transactions, while crypto exchanges suspended or prepared to suspend L-BTC deposit and withdrawal features. Blockstream, the network's core technology provider, established contact with the actors using signed onchain Bitcoin messages.
According to a timeline shared by Jan3 CEO and former Blockstream executive Samson Mow, the actors initiated contact requesting communication before proposing to return the funds to a Blockstream address. The actors stated that the assets would be returned once the underlying Elements vulnerability is patched and all network nodes apply the update. Approximately 3,998.5 BTC remained stationary following the transfer, and the funds had not been returned at the time of writing.
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