In a alarming six-hour window on July 23, 2026, Bitcoin- and Ethereum-linked protocols suffered multiple exploits draining over $35 million in combined losses. The attacks targeted cross-chain bridges and expansion networks, revealing persistent vulnerabilities in operational controls rather than fundamental cryptographic failures.
The most severe incident struck the Verus blockchain's Ethereum bridge, where attackers exploited a logic flaw to trigger unbacked payouts on the Ethereum side. Blockaid security researchers detected the exploit early Thursday, with approximately $7.54 million siphoned in ether, tokenized bitcoin, and stablecoins including USDC, USDT, EURC, MKR, and scrvUSD. Disturbingly, this represented a repeat offense: the same bridge contract and entry path had been compromised in May with $11.5 million lost, after which the attacker returned most funds for a bounty before Verus redeposited recovered money only to be drained again two weeks later.
B² network and other victims
B² Network, a Bitcoin scaling solution designed to reduce transaction costs and increase speed, fell victim when an attacker gained unauthorized upgrade powers over its token staking contract during Asian trading hours. Lookonchain tracked around $3.86 million in B2 tokens sold and converted to ether and stablecoins before being moved off-chain. B² responded by pausing staking services and pledging full compensation for affected users.
Additional protocols including AFX and Balance also reported losses within the 24-hour period, bringing the total number of exploited teams to four.
Common Attack Vector Emerges
All incidents shared a critical characteristic: none broke underlying cryptography. Instead, each attack succeeded through either logical bugs—where code executed as written but rules permitted fund extraction—or compromised administrative keys granting attackers control they should never have possessed. This pattern underscores how operational weaknesses, not mathematical vulnerabilities, remain the primary threat to cross-chain infrastructure.
The Verus protocol's total value locked illustrates the human cost of repeated breaches. Starting 2025 with nearly $100 million according to DefiLlama, Verus now holds approximately $9 million—a gradual decline punctuated by this week's fresh drop. As security firms like Peckshield and BlockAid sharpen their detection tools, the frequency of such exploits highlights the urgent need for rigorous audit practices and key management protocols across the decentralized finance ecosystem.
