Bitfinex blocks exploit as a massive transfer fails
Bitfinex has reportedly blocked a major exploit that could have drained half of its market capitalization. According to reports, the malicious actor intended to take away $15 billion worth of XRP tokens. The number comes to around 25.6 billion, which is half of the circulating supply.
Bitfinex was able to block the exploit by identifying Partial Payment. XRP Ledger has also been credited with recognizing and blocking the exploit attempt.
A blockchain tracking account initially reported the incident but misreported the actual number. Community members came forward to say that the transaction in question did not involve 25 billion XRP tokens, but the movement was only a few cents.
Moreover, it has been said that a few cents could not be transferred because of insufficient liquidity on the end of the sender.
The Chief Technical Officer of Bitfinex later came out in public to explain the true nature of the attack. Paolo Ardoino labeled this colossal transaction as Partial Payment Exploit. Paolo further said that the reason why the malicious actor failed with their attempt was because Bitfinex properly handled the delivery_amount data field.
That means the malicious actor had assumed that the system at Bitfinex would have a flawed system that would not properly read the amount and focus only on a different transaction field. That did not happen, and their ambitions went down the drain.
The malicious actor was believed to have further targeted Binance with a transfer of 58.9 billion XRP. The attempt also failed, but it has made it to the surface of media and content, which gives the blockchain sphere a lot to think about. While Bitfinex and Binance were able to block the exploit, there is nothing to confirm if other platforms would have been able to do the same. A failure to read the data field can cost the network and its users a lot of funds.
The market capitalization of XRP exceeds $31 billion. The tokens in question were worth roughly half of it. Furthermore, the same fraction of the circulating supply was exploited.
XRP has not been doing well in the last 30 days. It is exchanging hands at $0.5749 at the time of drafting this article. That is a fall of 0.98% in the last 24 hours and 7.50% in the last 30 days. The value has slightly hinted at bullish signs, but only if one looks at the changes in the last 7 days, for the jump is 1.90%.
The market cap and 24-hour volume of XRP are down by 1.04% and 11.40%, respectively.
This is not the first time that Bitfinex has faced such an incident. In November last year, that is, in 2023, Bitfinex said that it had witnessed a minor security incident. That was due to a phishing attack that victimized several users between October 30, 2023, and November 5, 2023. According to Bitfinex, the impact was minimal, with no major damage.
