Airdrop Army

In a strange twist of blockchain events, EigenLayer found itself in the eye of a $6 million token storm, but its protocol? Still watertight, they say. On October 5, the Ethereum restaking protocol revealed that an attacker had snatched 1.6 million EIGEN tokens. So, the tokens changed hands, but the integrity of EigenLayer’s core stayed rock solid.

The commotion began on October 4, when EigenLayer noticed some “unapproved selling activity.” A wallet ending in “f10D” offloaded $5.7 million worth of EIGEN tokens, sparking an immediate investigation. So, Etherscan flagged the wallet as under scrutiny, because the sale didn’t add up.

Email Heist, Not a Protocol Breach

EigenLayer wasn’t shy in revealing the source of the breach. The team confirmed that a malicious actor had infiltrated an email thread, intercepting a token transfer from an investor. So, 1.6 million EIGEN tokens landed in the attacker’s hands. From there, the hacker quickly swapped them for stablecoins through a decentralized platform, and the stablecoins were funneled into centralized exchanges.

“The attacker sold these stolen EIGEN tokens via a decentralized swap platform and transferred stablecoins to centralized exchanges,” EigenLayer stated. Despite the theft, the team stressed that the breach wasn’t linked to any vulnerability within the protocol itself. This incident was more about human error, not code issues.

Platforms Step In, Tokens Frozen

EigenLayer wasted no time getting in touch with exchanges and law enforcement. As a result, some of the stolen funds have already been frozen. So, the attacker might not get away clean after all. But even while tackling this, EigenLayer remained firm that their ecosystem remains untouched. They emphasized that the exploit didn’t compromise any onchain functionality.

Interestingly, this token heist happened just days after EIGEN tokens were unlocked on October 1. Initially priced at $3.85 on Binance, the token hit a fully diluted valuation of $6.5 billion. However, after the hack, EIGEN dropped to $3.38, and its valuation sank to $5.6 billion, nudging it down in the rankings.