Balancer Hit by $129 Million Exploit Across Multiple Chains
Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Balancer has fallen victim to a massive security breach that drained more than $129 million in crypto assets across several major blockchains, including Ethereum, Base, and Berachain.
The exploit, confirmed by Balancer’s engineering and security teams on November 3, targeted the project’s V2 vaults and liquidity pools, exposing a smart contract vulnerability that attackers leveraged to perform unauthorized swaps and drain funds.
According to PeckShieldAlert, most of the stolen assets were Ethereum-based tokens, including WETH, osETH, wstETH, sfrxETH, and rsETH. Blockchain data provider Spot On Chain also confirmed that networks such as Optimism, Sonic, and Polygon were affected.
One interesting on-chain observation came from a long-dormant address — 0x009 — which suddenly became active after the exploit, withdrawing $7.38 million worth of assets from Balancer.
Technical Details: Smart Contract Flaw Enabled Cross-Chain Drain
Investigators have identified the attack as a manipulation of Vault calls during pool initialization, exploiting weaknesses in authorization and callback handling.
These vulnerabilities allowed hackers to bypass security checks, execute malicious swaps, and manipulate balances across interconnected pools, effectively draining liquidity from Balancer’s V2 system across multiple chains in real time.
Hackers were also observed converting stolen liquid staking tokens (LSTs) into ETH shortly after the exploit, suggesting an organized and automated cashout strategy.
Berachain Validators Halt Network for Hard Fork
In the wake of the attack, the Bera Foundation announced that Berachain validators have intentionally halted block production. The move aims to contain the damage and facilitate an emergency hard fork to recover impacted funds tied to Balancer V2 contracts.
According to the foundation, the network will resume operations once the recovery and patching process is complete.
Community member Smokey The Bera shared on X (formerly Twitter) that the Ethena team was contacted to freeze bridge transfers out of Berachain, pause lending markets and USDe deposits, halt HONEY token mints and redemptions, and coordinate with centralized exchanges (CEXs) to blacklist attacker addresses.
Market Reaction: BAL, BERA, and ETH Prices Tumble
The BAL token, Balancer’s native asset, plunged over 10% following the exploit, trading around $0.897 at press time. Trading volume spiked 56% within 24 hours as panic selling intensified.
Meanwhile, BERA, Berachain’s native token, also fell by 7%, currently priced near $1.69 amid a 93% increase in trading volume.
Broader market sentiment also weakened, with liquid staking tokens (LDO, JTO, RPL, and others) dropping due to large-scale unstaking. Even Ethereum (ETH) saw a sharp intraday decline of over 4%, currently trading around $3,686, according to market data.
A Wake-Up Call for DeFi Security
This exploit underscores ongoing challenges in DeFi security, particularly around smart contract vulnerabilities and cross-chain interoperability. With Balancer now racing to contain damage and Berachain preparing a hard fork, the incident serves as another reminder that even established protocols remain vulnerable in an increasingly complex multi-chain environment.