{"id":11116,"date":"2026-07-25T10:01:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-25T10:01:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=11116"},"modified":"2026-07-25T10:01:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-25T10:01:09","slug":"two-ethereum-bridges-lose-31-7m-within-hours-as-third-protocol-halts-staking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=11116","title":{"rendered":"Two Ethereum bridges lose $31.7M within hours as third protocol halts staking"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

\n

AFX and the Verus-Ethereum bridge suffered about $31.69 million in combined losses within hours of each other, while B\u00b2 Network separately suspended token staking after unauthorized access to a contract upgrade authority.<\/p>\n

Blockaid said it detected the AFX exploit at about 21:30 UTC on July 22. An Arbitrum transaction recorded 24.15 million USDC leaving the bridge operated by AFX, a decentralized trading protocol on Arbitrum.<\/p>\n

AFX suspended its USDC custody bridge and said the incident was isolated from its trading infrastructure, mainnet, and the Arbitrum network. The affected component was a third-party bridge, not Arbitrum’s native bridge.<\/p>\n

In preliminary findings published July 24, AFX attributed the incident to coordinated social engineering and infrastructure compromise. The protocol said access appeared to begin in a development environment before escalating into internal build infrastructure and validator systems.<\/p>\n

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AFX said it was verifying balances, pursuing fund recovery and preparing remediation. As of July 24, it had not announced a completed return of funds or a finalized compensation plan.<\/p>\n

Hours after the AFX incident, an Ethereum transaction showed the Verus bridge releasing 1,137.4528 ETH and seven token transfers. Blockaid valued the unbacked payouts at about $7.54 million.<\/p>\n

SlowMist’s analysis said the bridge approved eight withdrawals without proving that matching assets backed them. The firm linked the failure to the same broad cross-chain import-validation class as a May exploit, but said the two attacks used different mechanics.<\/p>\n

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B\u00b2’s incident was not disclosed as a bridge exploit. The network said there was unauthorized access to its staking contract’s upgrade authority. B\u00b2 suspended normal staking during security reviews, said the issue was contained, and promised full compensation to affected users. It had not documented completed restitution as of July 24.<\/p>\n

B\u00b2 also offered a manual exit: users could request unstaking through its official Discord, with ownership-verified requests to be processed within one business day. The network did not state a loss amount, so its incident is excluded from the $31.69 million bridge-loss total. Until normal staking resumes, that manual review is the route B\u00b2 offered users seeking to withdraw staked tokens.<\/p>\n

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The three episodes exposed different controls outside base-chain consensus. AFX’s custody and validator infrastructure, Verus’s bridge-accounting checks, and B\u00b2’s staking-contract upgrade authority each became the point where normal access failed.<\/p>\n

For users, the next test is whether recovery plans return funds, whether cross-chain validation verifies economic backing and whether upgrade authority is protected without making emergency exits depend on manual intervention.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Crime,DeFi,Featured,Outage,Scams,Wallets,BlockAid,ethereum,SlowMist,stablecoins,USDCBlockAid,ethereum,SlowMist,stablecoins,USDC#Ethereum #bridges #lose #31.7M #hours #protocol #halts #staking1784973669<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AFX and the Verus-Ethereum bridge suffered about $31.69 million in combined losses within hours of each other, while B\u00b2 Network separately suspended token staking after unauthorized access to a contract upgrade authority. Blockaid said it detected the AFX exploit at about 21:30 UTC on July 22. An Arbitrum transaction recorded 24.15 million USDC leaving the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":11117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5683,4876,2993,31,1276,877,1929,131,5682,282,168,1582],"class_list":["post-11116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ethereum","tag-31-7m","tag-blockaid","tag-bridges","tag-ethereum","tag-halts","tag-hours","tag-lose","tag-protocol","tag-slowmist","tag-stablecoins","tag-staking","tag-usdc"],"yoast_head":"\nTwo Ethereum bridges lose $31.7M within hours as third protocol halts staking - Crypto News: Latest Cryptocurrency News and Analysis<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Bridge breach losses hit $31.69M across AFX and Verus, while B\u00b2 halted staking after unauthorized access to its upgrade authority.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=11116\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Two Ethereum bridges lose $31.7M within hours as third protocol halts staking\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bridge breach losses hit $31.69M across AFX and Verus, while B\u00b2 halted staking after unauthorized access to its upgrade authority.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=11116\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Crypto News: Latest Cryptocurrency News and Analysis\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-25T10:01:09+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/afx-verus-control-gate-featured.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1371\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"\u884c\u653f\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"\u884c\u653f\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=11116\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/cryptonews.uk.com\/?p=11116\",\"name\":\"Two Ethereum bridges lose $31.7M within hours as third protocol halts staking - 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