Qubic Network Halted After $1.4M Wallet Raid with Weak Seeds
Key Summary
Qubic's layer-1 blockchain network was halted after an attacker drained approximately $1.4 million from over 1,400 accounts using weak wallet seeds, with 87.1% of the stolen funds remaining onchain and the rest frozen at crypto exchange MEXC.
Precedent & Market Context
The Qubic wallet was hit by a significant loss of $1.3 million in a wallet raid before network halts, prompting the network to halt operations. The incident highlights the vulnerability of cryptocurrency wallets to hacking and the need for robust security measures.
Main Event
Layer-1 blockchain network Qubic halted operations Sunday after an attacker reportedly exploited weakly generated wallet seeds to drain approximately $1.4 million from more than 1,400 accounts, according to the project. In a statement on X, Qubic said the network was halted at tick 85,371,949, where it remains paused at the time of writing.
Analysis & Market Impact
The Qubic theft is the latest in a series of attacks tied to weak wallet seeds. In July, Coldcard disclosed that attackers had stolen funds from wallets whose seeds were weakened by a firmware bug. Similar flaws affected Trust Wallet’s browser extension and the Libbitcoin Explorer tool in 2023. Qubic said it has fixed the seed-generation flaw in the latest version of its web wallet. A GitHub commit for version 4.26. 4 shows that Qubic replaced JavaScript’s Math. random() function, which is not suitable for generating cryptographic secrets, with the cryptographically secure crypto. getRandomValues() function when creating wallet seeds.
Implications & Outlook
Qubic said it has identified affected wallets and is preparing recovery options for a vote by the network’s Computors, which will decide what happens to the frozen funds. The team said it would publish a full technical report after a recovery plan is settled. It has not announced when the network will restart. Qubic is a layer-1 blockchain that supports transactions and smart contracts without fees. It is built on Useful Proof of Work (UPoW) – a consensus mechanism that repurposes mining energy to train artificial intelligence.
Approximately $1.4 million was drained from over 1,400 accounts using weak wallet seeds. 87.1% of the stolen funds remain onchain, while the rest was frozen at crypto exchange MEXC. * Qubic has fixed the seed-generation flaw in the latest version of its web wallet.
Qubic, MEXC, Computors
Layer 1 / Layer 2 Infrastructure