Swiss Crypto Exchange Hacked For $41 Million In Solana

SwissBorg, a wallet/exchange service, recently lost $41.5 million in Solana to a hack. Attackers compromised the firm’s SOL staking protocol, using a partner API as a vulnerability.

The company claims that the losses were isolated to this one service. Nonetheless, the theft still compromises a significant chunk of its Solana holdings. SwissBorg will attempt to partially refund its users, regardless of asset recovery.

A Major Solana Hack

ZachXBT, the famous crypto sleuth, has been warning of a “crime supercycle” for several months now, tracking massive hacks and international criminal organizations alike.

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Today, he informed the community via Telegram that SwissBorg suffered a serious Solana hack. ZachXBT estimated about $41.5 million in total damages.

A few minutes later, the firm publicly acknowledged the incident, describing its account of the events. A partner API for SOL Earn, its Solana staking protocol, was compromised, enabling a significant asset drain:

This hack thoroughly compromised SwissBorg’s SOL Earn program, apparently absconding with all the relevant Solana tokens.

The firm has been particularly bullish on this token, as its CEO, Cyrus Fazel, described SwissBorg’s enthusiasm for SOL in a 2024 interview. This might make the incident particularly damaging.

Damages and Recovery

Although SOL Earn only represents 1% of the firm’s total user base, and similar staking protocols for other tokens remain unaffected, it’s still looking like a major blow. Since the hack happened so recently, it’s difficult to estimate its full implications, but there are a few useful data points.

For example, data from Arkham Intelligence shows that SwissBorg currently holds around $72.6 million in Solana, so this hack took a huge portion of its total stockpile. The firm claimed that it will use its own treasury to refund users a “significant portion of their balance,” but it would need to recover some lost funds to reimburse them fully.

API exploits like this have been particularly damaging lately; a recent JavaScript hack has massive implications for all crypto transactions. Even when a platform has ironclad security on its own end, partnered software can create unexpected code vulnerabilities.

Fazel will also conduct a live broadcast this afternoon to help further explain this Solana hack and SwissBorg’s next steps.

Hopefully, white hat investigators can help recover some funds, especially since some of the most prominent sleuths are on the case. Crypto crime prevention has been ineffective lately, but investigators aren’t giving up.