Another crypto bridge has been drained — this time for more than $11 million.
On Monday the Verus–Ethereum bridge, which lets users move ETH and ERC‑20 tokens between the Verus network and Ethereum, was exploited. The attacker withdrew 103.6 tBTC (Threshold Network’s tokenized Bitcoin), 1,625 ETH and 147,000 USDC, then swapped those holdings into 5,402.4 ETH (worth just over $11 million). Blockchain-monitoring firm PeckShield says the funds now sit at address 0x65Cb8b128Bf6e690761044CCECA422bb239C25F9.
This incident underscores a long‑standing vulnerability in the ecosystem: cross‑chain infrastructure is a frequent target. Rather than attacking individual smart contracts, many recent exploits focus on the systems that connect chains or handle cross‑protocol messaging — the very plumbing that makes transfers between blockchains possible.
Crypto exchange Phemex notes this pattern in recent major losses. It says the two biggest incidents this year, involving Drift and Kelp DAO, both abused bridge or cross‑chain messaging infrastructure, and several smaller incidents similarly targeted bridge components. The April Kelp DAO breach — which leveraged LayerZero’s cross‑chain messaging — resulted in roughly $293 million in losses and widespread fallout across DeFi.
The Verus–Ethereum exploit is the latest example of why bridge security and cross‑chain messaging remain critical weak points for the industry, and why auditors and teams are under pressure to harden these systems. Sources: PeckShield, Phemex.
Read more AI-generated news on: undefined/news
