Initia Halts Blockchain After $2.6M Exploit

Initia halted its layer-1 blockchain and all rollups after reports of an exploit. According to Cointelegraph and The Block, an attacker minted tokens without authorization and moved more than $2.6 million in assets to Ethereum.

What happened

The network was stopped on Friday, October 23, at 3:41 p.m. UTC. The Initia team announced it in a post on X. It added that it is working with security researchers, validators and exchanges to determine the full extent of the impact.

Blockchain security researcher Spreek was the first to flag the problem. He reported unauthorized token minting and a conversion of roughly $2.6 million into other assets. Some of the funds, he said, were still moving.

How the attacker operated

DeFi platform D2 Finance filled in the details. The attacker abused a vulnerability in a Move function and minted 2 million AUSD tokens without enough backing. Cross-chain transfers then took about 1.4 million AUSD, 105 ETH and 1.08 million USDC out to Ethereum.

All the assets ended up in a single Ethereum wallet that holds about 1,135.5 ETH. D2 Finance values that at roughly $2.73 million.

• 2 million AUSD minted without sufficient backing.
• About 1.4 million AUSD, 105 ETH and 1.08 million USDC sent to Ethereum.
• The attacker's wallet holds around 1,135.5 ETH.

The network that was stopped

Initia is a layer-1 blockchain that supports a network of connected rollups called Minitias. The halt hit both the base chain and those rollups.

The INIT token briefly dipped to around $0.115 before climbing back above $0.15. At the time Cointelegraph published, it traded near $0.1496, up about 14% on the day.

What remains unconfirmed

Initia has not publicly confirmed the loss estimate or named the exact cause of the exploit. Cointelegraph could not get a comment through the project's official X account. The impact on users and the restart schedule remain unclear.

As of the evening of October 23, the team had only said it is assessing the damage with researchers, validators and exchanges. It has not published further details.