Cryptocurrency hackers crash Truebit digital token by almost 100%

The Truebit (TRU) cryptocurrency has collapsed by almost 100% after approximately 8,535 ETH, or about $ 26.6 million, was stolen from the protocol, according to blockchain and independent researchers.

Truebit is an Ethereum-based verification and computing project. In a public announcement, the team confirmed that there was a «security incident involving one or more attackers» and said it was working with law enforcement and taking steps to respond. At the same time, the project warned users not to interact with the smart contract address 0×764C64b2A09b09Acb100B80d8c505Aa6a0302EF2 until further notice.

Lookonchain analysts estimated the loss at 8,535 ETH. Researcher Weilin Li explained that the attack was made possible by a vulnerability in an old smart contract that was deployed about five years ago. The code had a bug in the minting logic, which could accidentally return the price of 0 ETH during a large token purchase.

This gave the attacker the opportunity to buy TRU for free and then immediately sell it back to the backup bonding curve system, gradually draining the ether from there. Another independent researcher with the nickname n0b0dy described the scheme as a series of buying and selling cycles that exploited mispricing while rebalancing the reserve. The attacker’s wallet also paid a small «builder bribe» to prioritize confirmation of transactions.

Due to this exploit, TRU almost completely lost liquidity, and the price dropped to minus 99.9% as token holders tried to exit their positions en masse. The story once again reminded the crypto community that even old smart contracts that have not been changed for a long time can remain vulnerable and pose a threat if they still hold funds or are linked to active reserves.

At this point, Truebit has not yet released a full post-mortem report and has not confirmed whether the affected contracts have been suspended.