Qubic restarts network after 42-hour halt, opens claims through May 2027

Qubic, the layer-1 blockchain halted after a wallet hack, resumed operation after about 42 hours. In a post on X at 3:14 a.m. KST on Oct. 21, Qubic said its validator nodes had voted to approve a recovery plan and that it had opened a site where victims can claim their funds. "The first funds have already gone back to verified owners," the company said.

A 42-hour halt, with drained coins moved to escrow

Records on the Qubic explorer show the chain stopped processing transactions after tick 85,371,949 at 10:32 a.m. KST on Oct. 18. Qubic processes transactions in units called "ticks" instead of blocks. The next record is tick 85,371,952 at 5 a.m. KST on Oct. 20. Qubic said that while the network was halted, the affected funds were moved into a protected escrow account out of the attacker's reach, which made the recovery possible.

Earlier, over 1 hour and 44 minutes on the morning of Oct. 18, an attacker drained about 2.94 trillion of the native QU coins from 1,404 wallets whose seeds, the secret strings that control a wallet, had been generated weakly. The cause was insufficient randomness in seeds created before Oct. 18 on an iPhone or iPad (in any browser) or in Safari on a Mac, or in the Qubic iOS app before July 2025. Of the drained coins, 87.1% stayed locked on-chain, while 12.9% went to the MEXC exchange, where the receiving account was frozen. How to handle the losses was left to a quorum decision by the network's validator nodes, called "Computors," and that decision has now been made.

A signature alone cannot prove who owns the funds

A claim requires the affected address (a 60-character identity), a new receiving address created in an updated wallet, a message signed with the affected address, and proof of ownership. The receiving address must be created on a device or browser that was not affected. The signed message only links the claim to the new address, because the weak seeds mean the attacker can produce the same signature. Ownership is therefore decided by evidence the attacker cannot have. The reclaim site lists the following:

• An exchange withdrawal receipt showing a withdrawal to the affected address — the strongest evidence, since it ties back to the exchange's identity verification
• An over-the-counter (OTC) deal confirmation referencing the address
• A pre-incident funding trail from a source the claimant owns
• A message signed by a different, unaffected address that funded it
• A personal statement — supporting material only, not proof

An identity check through the third-party provider Didit is optional. Qubic said it receives only a pass or fail result and the documents stay with Didit. Single, strongly evidenced claims with no competing claimant go to a "fast" lane, while contested, weakly evidenced or larger claims go to an "extended" lane reviewed by core developers. Approved claims are listed with only the address and amount for seven days before payout, and funds tied to unresolved competing claims stay frozen in escrow. Qubic said filing early does not put a claim ahead of a legitimate later one, so there is no need to rush.

The share sent to MEXC will take longer

How funds are returned depends on where they are. Drained funds still on the chain are returned from the recovery escrow account. The portion sent to MEXC is returned separately through the exchange, a process Qubic said is slower and depends on cooperation from law enforcement. Wallets with weak seeds that were not drained sit on an on-hold list and are released once the claim is verified. Owned assets such as tokens and shares move to the new address when the claim is approved, while holdings locked in Qubic's QEARN staking product and similar positions are returned in later batches. Orders on Qubic's QX exchange were cancelled during the recovery. Qubic said it will publish a full technical report separately.

QUBIC trades about 3% below its pre-attack level

QUBIC is not listed on the Korean won markets of Upbit, Bithumb or Coinone. On MEXC's hourly chart, QUBIC closed the 7 a.m. KST hour on Oct. 18, just before the attack, at $0.0000004747 and fell as low as $0.0000004145 in the 5 a.m. hour on Oct. 19. It closed the 5 a.m. hour on Oct. 20, when the chain came back, at $0.0000004818. At 10:30 a.m. KST on Oct. 21 it traded at $0.0000004617, about 11% above the low and about 2.7% below its pre-attack price.