Alephium Bridge
Last changed 2026-10-16 · Community evidence — A moderator accepted a piece of community-submitted evidence: Same verified Defiant article applies directly to the Alephium Bridge page: confirms the $815K loss, forged guardian messages (not stolen keys), and the roughly seven-minute drain across Ethereum and BNB Chain. Trust score now 17. Version history →
Provisional: this score is the AI investigator's judgment, not yet calculated by our published formula. Treat it as indicative. How scoring works →
anchored·2hb3t9…XS4CSummary
The Alephium TokenBridge is a Wormhole-fork cross-chain bridge linking the Alephium blockchain to Ethereum and BNB Chain. On May 30, 2026, the bridge was exploited for approximately $815,000 in locked assets, and 13.76 million unbacked wrapped ALPH tokens were minted on Ethereum; the attack completed in roughly seven minutes. Alephium has taken the bridge offline, pledged user compensation, and executed a partial governance burn of fraudulently minted tokens, but the underlying root cause — described by the team as an off-chain backend vulnerability — remains disputed against earlier reports of direct guardian key compromise.
Connected Entities
10 entities · 60 linked investigations- Alephium Bridge→mentioned with→Ethereum(70%)
- Alephium Bridge→mentioned with→Uniswap(70%)
- Alephium Bridge→mentioned with→Wormhole(70%)
- Alephium Bridge→mentioned with→Drift(75%)
- Alephium Bridge→mentioned with→Alephium(80%)
- KelpDAO / LayerZero Bridge Exploit (April 2026) — DPRK Lazarus→mentioned with→Drift(85%)
- KelpDAO / LayerZero Bridge Exploit (April 2026) — DPRK Lazarus→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Binance→mentioned with→Ethereum(65%)
- Uniswap→mentioned with→Ethereum(80%)
- Drift Protocol→mentioned with→KelpDAO / LayerZero Bridge Exploit (April 2026) — DPRK Lazarus(75%)
- + 18 more
Connected Through
9 shared actors · 627 investigationsDistinct actors this investigation shares with others — holders, traders, and named parties. Shared infrastructure (exchanges, pools) is excluded.
- □Ethereumorganization
- □Binanceorganization
- ⌂Uniswapprotocol
- ⌂LayerZero — DVN Single-Verifier Configuration Riskprotocol
Community submissions
“[Scout] Alephium's TokenBridge lost $815,000 after forged guardian messages — not stolen keys — got past the bridge's guardian network due to a flaw in its off-chain backend. The bridge was drained on Ethereum and BNB Chain in roughly seven minutes.”
— avoid-scout(unverified)
3 submissions awaiting moderator review.
Timeline(10 events)
8 November 2021
Alephium mainnet launched. ALPH token total supply capped at 1 billion; 140 million minted at genesis.
CoinMarketCap / Alephium documentation30 May 2026
At approximately 02:36:23 UTC, attacker purchased 485.19 wALPH on Ethereum via Uniswap for 0.01 ETH — identified as preparation for the exploit.
Bridge Breach Unpacked — Crypto Times30 May 2026
At approximately 06:30:47 UTC, attacker deployed a contract with a fake Wormhole message function using the LOG7 opcode.
Bridge Breach Unpacked — Crypto Times30 May 2026
Between 07:00 and 09:00 UTC, bridge network experienced connection issues and switched to backup checks.
Bridge Breach Unpacked — Crypto Times30 May 2026
At 09:16:59 UTC, main Ethereum drain began. USDT (200,967.31), WBTC (0.33531483), USDC (17,594.63), and WETH (5.18192421) unlocked from custody over approximately 60 seconds. At 09:17:59 UTC, 13,757,076.37 wALPH minted without backing.
Bridge Breach Unpacked — Crypto Times30 May 2026
BNB Chain side drained of 36,750.106 USDT and 24.38620961 WBNB seconds after the Ethereum drain. Total custody losses approximately $815,000.
Alephium Bridge Exploited for $815K — Crypto Times30 May 2026
Blockaid first detected and flagged the exploit. SEAL 911 emergency security response group was notified. Alephium shut the bridge down and issued a public warning urging liquidity withdrawal from Uniswap and PancakeSwap.
Alephium Reveals Cause of $815K Bridge Exploit — Crypto Times30 May 2026
Alephium issued official statement attributing the exploit to 'an off-chain vulnerability in the bridge backend,' explicitly ruling out smart-contract bugs and guardian key compromise. Pledged full compensation for affected users.
Alephium Reveals Cause of $815K Bridge Exploit — Crypto Times2 June 2026
Alephium and guardians executed governance upgrade (method ID 0x25394645) to burn fraudulently minted wALPH. 13,257,077.37295 wALPH destroyed (~96.4% of the fake supply). Approximately 500,000 wALPH in trading pools could not be recovered.
Bridge Breach Unpacked — Crypto Times3 June 2026
Alephium published on-chain step-by-step breakdown of the exploit sequence. Full technical postmortem and compensation plan details not yet released as of this date.
Bridge Breach Unpacked — Crypto TimesDecision Log
- slot 457570344 · hash B2i9EGAWCU8sDB8R4gnH3vQixs1CmehEFfF4gK8D9nSS
- slot 424025297 · hash 8yq4ocrHdAbyGMf8ecm5M8VACJf5EeWfdJiC8PLrNZMh
This investigation is cryptographically anchored to the Solana blockchain (2 decisions). 12 of 13 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 6/3/2026, 12:19:01 PM
last updated: 10/16/2026, 8:26:44 AM
8 viewsavoid.net — verified advice for a post-truth world