Multichain Bridges Experience Unannounced Outflows of Over $130M in Crypto

Multiple bridge contracts operated by Multichain saw major outflows of a litany of popular tokens Thursday. There was no immediate explanation for the outflows.

The unannounced moves stripped Multichain’s Fantom bridge of nearly its entire holdings in wBTC, USDC, USDT and a handful of altcoins. Together, the assets were worth over $120 million. On-chain sleuths described the activity as highly unusual; Fantom Foundation CEO Michael Kong told CoinDesk he was “looking into it.”

Multichain has been under pressure for over a month because of failing tech and its AWOL CEO. The trio of unexplained outflows from Multichain’s Fantom, Moonriver and Dogecoin bridge contracts sparked fears on crypto Twitter that a hack could be afoot. Multichain could not immediately be reached for comment.

With information hard to come by, some crypto projects began informing their communities Thursday that they were unaffected by the “potential exploit” of Multichain. “As of right now, Abracadabra is not affected by the possible Multichain exploit, we are investigating with the involved parties to learn more,” the team behind Magic Internet Money stablecoin wrote in the project Discord.

Assets transferred out of the Multichain Fantom bridge, with at least $20 million of the altcoins including DAI, LINK and USDT going to 0x9d57. Other transfers saw outbound moves of 1,023 wBTC (~$30.9 million) 7,214 wETH (~$13.6 million), and $57 million USDC between two separate addresses.

Multichain’s Moonriver bridge contract has seen $6.8 million in token outflows with nearly all its wBTC, USDT, USDC and DAI going to 0x48BeAD. An address identified as Mulitchain’s Dogecoin bridge has seen over $600,000 in outflows of USDC.