Initia halts its chain after exploit mints about $2.7 million worth of tokens
Coinyong
INIT
Initia halted its L1 and all rollups at 12:41 a.m. KST on Oct. 24; no restart date has been given.
A co-founder said a MoveVM bug let an attacker mint and bridge out about $2.7 million in AUSD, ETH and USDC.
Upbit and Bithumb suspended INIT deposits and withdrawals, Upbit issued a caution notice, and trading continued.
Initia, a layer-1 blockchain, halted its main chain (L1) and the rollups that run on top of it after a security incident. Initia said on its official X account that the chain was halted as of 12:41:30 a.m. KST on Oct. 24 (3:41 p.m. UTC on Oct. 23). Co-founder Ezaan Mangalji said an attacker used a bug in the chain to mint about $2.7 million worth of tokens and bridge them out to another chain.
- Block production halted on the Initia L1 and all rollups
- Upbit announces a temporary suspension of Initia (INIT) deposits and withdrawals
- Initia posts on X that the chain has been halted due to a security incident
- Upbit issues a trading caution notice for INIT
- Co-founder Ezaan Mangalji gives the first account of the cause and the amount drained
In its notice, Initia said it was working to establish the full scope of any impact with security teams, validators and exchanges, and that it would share verified information through its official channels. It also asked users to remain cautious of unofficial links, messages or claims circulating during this time. As of 10:30 a.m. KST on Oct. 24, no timeline for restarting the chain had been given.
Tokens minted and bridged out, 1,135 ETH sitting in one wallet
On his personal X account, Mangalji wrote that "to the best of our knowledge so far, this is a Day 0 bug related to Initia's MoveVM on CosmosSDK." MoveVM is the engine that executes smart contracts, and a Day 0 bug is a flaw that was not previously known. He said the bug "allowed the exploiter to mint additional tokens on the Initia L1." He added that "the attacker was able to mint and bridge out ~$2.7m worth of AUSD, ETH, and USDC before the chain was paused."
According to Cointelegraph, DeFi platform D2 Finance said the attacker minted 2 million AUSD without sufficient backing, then moved about 1.4 million AUSD, 105 ETH and about 1.08 million USDC to Ethereum. The assets were consolidated into a single Ethereum wallet holding about 1,135.5 ETH. As of 10:30 a.m. KST on Oct. 24, that wallet (0x358e…CAC8) still held 1,135.52 ETH, worth about $2.7 million at Binance's ETH price of $2,376. Initia has not yet officially confirmed the losses or the cause.
Mangalji: the bug "does not apply to native INIT tokens"
Mangalji added that the bug "does not apply to native INIT tokens." The tokens he said were minted without authorization were AUSD, ETH and USDC.
Initia was built by former Terra and Cosmos developers and is designed to tie multiple rollups, which Initia calls Minitias, to a single L1. Its mainnet and the INIT token launched on April 24, 2025. Because the rollups depend on the L1, they stopped when the L1 was halted.
Upbit and Bithumb block deposits and withdrawals, trading continues
Upbit, a South Korean exchange, temporarily suspended INIT deposits and withdrawals at 12:57 a.m. KST on Oct. 24 as "a user protection measure following signs of a security incident." It said it would announce the resumption through the same notice after confirming that deposits and withdrawals are stable. During the suspension, recovery of mistakenly deposited funds and withdrawal address registration may also be paused. At 1:15 a.m., Upbit followed with a trading caution notice for INIT, saying price volatility "may increase." On Upbit, INIT trades only in its BTC and USDT markets, with no Korean won market.
Bithumb, which lists INIT in its Korean won market, also showed both INIT deposits and withdrawals blocked on its public API as of 10:30 a.m. KST on Oct. 24. Neither exchange halted trading.
What INIT holders should know
While the chain is halted, INIT cannot be sent to or received from wallets outside exchanges. According to Upbit's notice, even if a withdrawal is processed on the blockchain around the time of the suspension, it may be credited to accounts late. Initia urged users to watch out for impersonation links.
On Bithumb, a slide to 153 won, then a jump to 218 won
INIT in Bithumb's Korean won market fell to 153 won during the midnight hour KST on Oct. 24, then jumped to 218 won in the 1 a.m. hour. It traded at 186 won at 10:30 a.m., with 24-hour trading value of about 4 billion won. That was a little over 1% below the Binance price converted into won (about 188 won) at the same time.
On Binance, INIT also slid to $0.1134 during the midnight hour before climbing above $0.155 in the 1 a.m. hour. At 10:30 a.m., it was at $0.142, up about 9.6% from 24 hours earlier. The funding rate on Binance's INIT perpetual futures was 0.005% at the same time.
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