MANTRA Chain Upstream Exploit (August 2026)
Auto-generated score, not yet verified against the scoring model. Under review — treat as indicative, not a verdict.
Summary
On August 20-21, 2026, MANTRA Chain halted all block production after an attacker exploited a critical vulnerability (ASA-2026-002) in the shared Cosmos EVM ICS20 precompile, a component developed by Cosmos Labs and used by multiple chains. MANTRA's OM token fell 18.5% to an all-time low of $0.004126 during the approximately 30-hour outage, and the chain resumed on August 22 after deploying patched version 8.4.0. MANTRA stated no user funds were exploited and that only two project-managed wallets were affected, but the team has not published a technical post-mortem nor disclosed what, if anything, was extracted from those wallets, leaving the full financial scope of the incident unresolved as of August 27, 2026.
Connected Entities
1 entitiesTimeline(8 events)
2026
Saga EVM network suffers an estimated $7 million exploit via the same ICS20 precompile vulnerability class (ASA-2026-002); attacker mints uncollateralized stablecoin using forged IBC messages and bridges proceeds to Ethereum.
MANTRA Chain Hacked Via Cosmos EVM Bug That Already Cost Saga $7M in January — TechTimes2026-03
Cosmos Labs releases v0.6.0 of the Cosmos EVM module, silently patching ASA-2026-002, without advance private notification to downstream chains.
ASA-2026-002 Security Advisory — cosmos/evm GitHub2026-06-16
Inveniam Capital Partners announces agreement to acquire MANTRA following a $20 million strategic investment; deal targeted to close by June 30, 2026.
Inveniam to Acquire MANTRA — GlobeNewswire2026-08-20
MANTRA Chain detects an active attacker exploiting the Cosmos EVM ICS20 precompile vulnerability in two project-managed wallets. Network halts block production at approximately 11:13 p.m. UTC (last block: 17,449,398). All transactions, endpoints, bridge operations, and exchange deposits/withdrawals are frozen.
MANTRA token plunges 18% to record low as blockchain halts after exploit — CoinDesk2026-08-21
MANTRA's OM token falls approximately 18.5% to a then-record low of $0.004126. Trading volume surges approximately 600% to roughly $24 million. MEXC suspends MANTRA deposits and withdrawals. At 9:45 a.m. UTC, MANTRA announces it has identified the root cause as isolated to the Cosmos EVM module affecting two wallet addresses, and states no user funds were exploited.
MANTRA Chain Halts Network After Unidentified Incident — The Crypto Times2026-08-22
KiiChain suffers 18 repeated exploit attempts draining approximately 148.3 million KII tokens (sold for roughly $1.6 million). TAC Network halted after approximately 3 billion TAC tokens (valued at roughly $7.5 million) are drained from its staking contract. MANTRA Chain resumes block production at approximately 05:30 UTC after coordinated validator upgrade to v8.4.0. Cosmos Labs publicly urges all remaining Cosmos EVM chains to halt validators.
Cosmos Labs Confirms Cosmos EVM Incident as 3 Chains Disclose Impact — Yahoo Finance2026-08-25
Cosmos Labs issues broader public advisory on the ASA-2026-002 vulnerability. Criticism of Cosmos Labs' silent patch disclosure model grows publicly.
Cosmos Labs Urges Cosmos EVM Chains to Halt Validators, Three Now Offline — The Crypto Times2026-08-27
MANTRA has not published a technical post-mortem. Financial details about the two affected project-managed wallets remain undisclosed. The promised post-mortem analysis has not appeared as of the date of this investigation.
MANTRA Chain Restores Operations Following 30-Hour Cosmos-EVM Vulnerability Shutdown — BlockonomiDecision Log
- #1publish⛓ pending8/27/2026, 5:08:20 PMhash: 9gMRHYj5ZbWnkBsQ3JyWC77VpexbQCMf9nevgJv4wxve
16 of 24 cited source URLs have an Internet Archive snapshot.
model: claude-sonnet-4-6
generated: 8/27/2026, 5:08:08 PM
last updated: 8/27/2026, 6:05:16 PM
avoid.net — verified advice for a post-truth world