Berachain validators coordinated an emergency shutdown of the network after exposure to a vulnerability linked to the Balancer V2 exploit, the project’s core team said on Monday.
“Berachain validators have coordinated to intentionally stop the network while the core team performs an emergency hard fork to address exploits related to Balancer V2 on BEX,” the Berachain Foundation said on X. “The stop was executed on purpose and the network will be operational shortly after recovering all affected funds.”
Charging…
BEX is the largest decentralized exchange (DEX) on the network and holds over $50 million in tokens as of Monday.
The issue appears to stem from the same Balancer vault access control flaw that allowed attackers to drain tens of millions in assets from liquidity pools earlier that day, causing more than $100 million in various tokens to be drained from Ethereum’s decentralized finance (DeFi) powerhouse.
The pause will allow developers to implement an emergency hard fork aimed at isolating compromised contracts and recovering affected assets before resuming operations.
The Balancer attack primarily affected a liquidity pool that included etena and honey tokens, using a complex series of smart contract interactions.
Because the stolen funds involved multiple non-native assets (and not just Berachain’s own token, BERA), fixing it isn’t as simple as going back a few blocks. The fork will not be simple and could potentially involve rollback or rollfronts.
Meanwhile, Berachain co-founder Smokey The Bera said on X that approximately $12 million in user funds were at risk, prompting validators to take coordinated action.
“I’m sure some will be unhappy with this and we recognize it could be seen as a controversial decision,” he said. “Berachain does not benefit from Ethereum’s degree of decentralization, but when user funds are threatened, we act to protect them.”
Monday’s Balancer exploit has spread across DeFi markets, affecting Balancer and several of its forks, including Beets Finance, which also confirmed a security breach in its v2 pools.
Balancer’s BAL token is down about 8% in the last hour, while Berachain’s BERA is down 6%.
