GENEVA–An cyberattack on the Solana cryptocurrency ecosystem drained funds from thousands of wallets.
The theft of the funds is expected to bring even more scrutiny to the need for regulation of various crypto providers.
According to the Solana Foundation, the unknown attacker exploited a flaw to drain cryptocurrencies from 8,000 wallets where crypto holders store their funds, The attack affected several wallet providers, including Slope and Phantom, according to the Wall Street Journal.
While the total value of the assets stolen was unclear, blockchain security firm PeckShield told the Journal it estimated the loss to be $8 million. The details of the attack were unknown.
Seeking a Fix
Both wallet providers said in statements on Twitter they were working to fix the issue.
On both platforms, users reported losing their solana tokens and that of stablecoin USDC, whose value is pegged to the U.S. dollar, the Journal added.
“This does not appear to be a bug with Solana core code, but in software used by several wallets popular among Solana users,” said Austin Federa, a spokesman for Solana, in a statement.
The Solana network has sought to lure more decentralized finance applications to the blockchain. Decentralized finance, or DeFi, aims to replicate functions of traditional finance, such as banking, insurance and exchanges, the Journal stated.
Surging Popularity
The Journal noted that Solana’s popularity has surged in recent years, with supporters seeing it as faster and more energy efficient than the Ethereum or bitcoin blockchains, which can seize up during periods of heavy transaction volumes. The technology attracted $314 million in new funding