A Wanchain bridge exploit drained approximately 515 million NIGHT tokens from the Cardano-side treasury of a Cardano-to-BNB Chain bridge, causing the token’s price to drop over 30% within 24 hours. Security firm BlockSec linked the incident to a possible flaw in the TreasuryCheck validator, noting a susceptibility to signature reuse. The Midnight Foundation confirmed that its blockchain and core systems remained secure, as the incident affected third-party bridge infrastructure.
Blockchain security firm BlockSec reported that the Wanchain bridge exploit drained approximately 515 million NIGHT tokens from the Cardano-side treasury of a Cardano-to-BNB Chain bridge. The token subsequently fell more than 30% within 24 hours.
In a post on X, BlockSec’s Phalcon said an early review found a possible weakness in the TreasuryCheck validator. The firm stressed that its findings were preliminary. The Midnight Foundation stated that the incident affected third-party bridge infrastructure, not the Midnight blockchain or core systems.
According to BlockSec, the exploit may involve how TreasuryCheck prepares messages for signing. The validator combines 14 fields of different lengths without clear separators and does not record each field’s length before signing, making it susceptible to signature reuse.
The initial assessment was based on the Plutus V2 source code and the attack transaction. Structured encoding would have clarified the ambiguity, as well-defined boundaries would ensure different data sets do not generate one signed message.
The Midnight Foundation initially stated it was investigating issues related to bridged NIGHT. Later, the organization confirmed that the Wanchain bridge attack related to infrastructure developed outside the protocol, as validators and consensus worked normally.
As of the report, NIGHT reached an intraday high of $0.02689 before dropping to a low of $0.01582. According to data, it was trading at $0.0174, a drop of 29% within 24 hours, while daily volume rose 825% to $143.42 million.
The Wanchain bridge exploit created a supply overhang for NIGHT. Any unsold holdings associated with the exploit could continue impacting the token, as further sales would exert downward pressure on its price in the short term.
