K9 Finance Announces $23K Reward Following $2.4M Shibarium Bridge Breach

Shiba Inu’s decentralized finance platform on the Shibarium layer-2 network has offered a 5 Ether ($23,000) bounty to the individual responsible for a recent bridge exploit, requesting the return of the stolen assets.

On Monday, the DeFi platform sent an onchain message to the attacker, stating that the bounty offer will remain valid for 30 days. The protocol specified a deadline and warned that the bounty amount will begin to decrease in seven days.

“Settlement is atomic when we call recoverKnine(). If you call accept() we cannot cancel the deal. Code is law,” K9 Finance stated. “Bounty is live. Please, act fast.”

In a post on X on Saturday, Shiba Inu developer Kaal Dhairya mentioned that while they have already reached out to the authorities, the team is open to negotiations with the attacker.

Shiba Inu’s Shibarium bridge faces a $2.4 million exploit

The exploit on Saturday drained approximately $2.4 million in digital assets after malicious actors accessed validator signing keys. The attacker used a flash loan to acquire 4.6 million Bone ShibaSwap (BONE) tokens, gaining majority validator power and signing a malicious transaction to transfer the funds from the bridge.

Dhairya said that in response to the attack, Shibarium developers have suspended their stake and unstake functions and transferred their stake manager funds into a hardware wallet controlled by a multisig.

The developer emphasized that restoring network security and protecting user assets is the team’s primary objective. Dhairya added that they are collaborating with security teams, including Hexens, Seal 911, and PeckShield, for further investigation.

Tokens linked to the Shiba Inu ecosystem experienced price declines following the exploit. The Shiba Inu (SHIB) token fell from $0.0000145 to $0.0000131, a 7% decrease, at the time of writing.

The K9 Finance (KNINE) token dropped from $0.00000287 to $0.00000257, reflecting a 10% drop. Meanwhile, ShibaSwap’s token, BONE, has suffered a 38% decline since Sunday, dropping from $0.31 to $0.19.

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THORChain co-founder loses $1.35 million in DPRK attack

The Shibarium exploit follows another smaller-scale attack targeting the personal wallet of THORChain co-founder John-Paul Thorbjornsen (JP Thor). Onchain investigator ZachXBT reported on Friday that Thorbjornsen was drained after participating in a meeting call scam on Telegram.