Blockchain tokenization platform Holograph's native token plummeted nearly 80% after a malicious actor hacked the protocol's operator agreement and minted 1 billion HLG tokens worth $14.4 million. Holograph's official X account confirmed the hack on June 14. The account said it has since fixed the process for the initial attack and is working with its cryptocurrency exchange partners to freeze the attacker's accounts.

Statement from the Holograph Team Was Not Delayed

The Holograph team added in their statement that they initiated an internal investigation into the attack within the company and contacted law enforcement. According to Etherscan data, 1 billion #HLG tokens were minted in nine different transactions by the hacker, taking advantage of the smart contract vulnerability; The first printing took place on June 13 at 12:47. Seven of these transactions were sent in batches of 100 million.

It only took 10 minutes for the HLG price to start falling. In nine hours, the token dropped 79.4% from $0.014 to $0.0029. According to CoinGecko data, HLG's market cap dropped from approximately $22 million to $4.8 million during this time period. The HLG price recovered slightly following the attack, rising to $0.008.

1 billion HLG tokens are worth $ 7.4 million at current prices, but the hacker started to convert the HLG token printed about four hours after the first attack into the stablecoin Tether.

Remarkable Details

Matt Casto, cryptocurrency researcher at venture capital firm CMT Digital, believes the hacker is a malicious developer who funded Holograph's operator agreement address 26 days ago. Holograph has not yet responded to whether it knows the identity of the hacker.

Holograph is based on the Omnichain ecosystem and enables tokens to move between blockchain networks while maintaining the same contract address, thus allowing asset issuers to index cross-chain data. Holograph; He has received venture capital funding from companies such as Animoca Brands and Mechanism Capital.

According to a recent Crystal Intelligence report, approximately $19 billion in crypto assets have been stolen since the first industry hack was reported in June 2011.