H1 2026 Bridge Hack Cluster — Same-Day $35.6M Attack Wave July 22-23
Summary
On July 22-23, 2026, three cross-chain bridge protocols — AFX Trade (Arbitrum), the Verus-Ethereum bridge, and B² Network — were exploited within a six-hour window, collectively losing approximately $35.55 million. Security firm Blockaid labeled the cluster 'Hackers Day' and documented overlapping failure modes across the incidents, though direct operational coordination between the attackers has not been confirmed. The cluster contributed to a July 2026 total of approximately $97 million in bridge-related losses and occurred against a backdrop of record H1 2026 crypto hack losses exceeding $1.1 billion.
Connected Entities
1 entities · 10 linked investigationsTimeline(9 events)
2026-05-18
Verus-Ethereum bridge suffers its first exploit, losing approximately $11.58 million. Attacker forges Merkle proof exploiting a validation gap between source-chain committed value and Ethereum-side payout. Assets converted to approximately 5,402 ETH.
Cryptopolitan / Yahoo Finance / Halborn2026-07-08
Assets recovered following the May 2026 Verus exploit are redeposited to the bridge, re-exposing user funds while the underlying vulnerability remained unpatched.
CoinDesk2026-07-22
At 21:30 UTC, Blockaid detects an exploit targeting AFX Trade's custodial bridge on Arbitrum. Attackers with five compromised hot-validator keys withdraw 24.15 million USDC. Stolen USDC is converted to approximately 12,467.5 ETH and bridged to Ethereum.
CoinDesk / The Block / CryptoRank2026-07-23
At approximately 03:45 UTC, the Verus-Ethereum bridge is exploited for a second time in 2026, losing $7.54 million. Blockaid confirms same contract, entry path, and vulnerability class as the May attack but identifies a different attacker wallet (0xCFd0...2D54). Stolen assets consolidated to approximately 3,916 ETH and routed through Tornado Cash.
crypto.news / CryptoTimes / CoinDesk2026-07-23
B² Network's staking contract upgrade authority is accessed by an unauthorized wallet, draining 8.59 million B2 tokens worth approximately $3.86 million. Funds converted to 5,409 WBNB and routed toward Zcash via NEAR Intents. B² suspends staking and offers legal immunity for return of 10% of funds.
Metaverse Post / CryptoAdventure2026-07-23
Blockaid labels the cluster of three same-day exploits 'Hackers Day' and documents combined losses of approximately $35.55 million across AFX Trade, Verus, and B² Network within a six-hour window.
CoinPedia / Bitcoin Foundation2026-07-23
Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder publicly states that the Arbitrum native bridge was not compromised, clarifying that the AFX exploit targeted AFX's own third-party bridge infrastructure.
CoinDesk2026-07-23
AFX head of growth Ken C. issues public on-chain bounty offer: return 70% of stolen funds and retain 30% as a whitehat bounty. AFX engages SlowMist and Zellic for forensic investigation.
CryptoBriefing / KuCoin2026-07-29
Blockaid publishes H1 2026 crypto security report confirming record losses exceeding $1.1 billion across 212 verified incidents, with cross-chain bridges identified as a leading attack surface category.
The Block / CryptoTimesDecision Log
- #1publish⛓ pending8/1/2026, 11:10:50 PMhash: 7jA57Lj8xK39rcJbUZZkSGHAB1DYuZRcyGSZRigyPcWJ
23 of 25 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 8/1/2026, 11:10:40 PM
last updated: 8/2/2026, 7:33:28 PM
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