Blockchain startup Bittensor temporarily shut down its network due to a private key leak, and its token dropped 16%. 📉 Bittensor is a decentralized machine learning protocol and appears to have been subject to a hacker attack targeting a large number of wallets. Losses are estimated to be around $8 million.

On July 2, blockchain detective ZachXBT revealed in a Telegram post that hackers had withdrawn more than 30,000 Bittensor TAO tokens, which were worth approximately $8 million at the time. Bittensor confirmed the attack in its Discord channel and ordered a temporary network shutdown.

Following the news, TAO token fell 16% to $227 and later rose to $238, according to CoinMarketCap data. The root cause of the attack remains unclear, but ZachXBT suggested it may have been caused by a "private key leak."