ASTRO token crashes 60% after Terra blockchain exploit

• Astroport (ASTRO) price nosedived 60% after Terra blockchain announced a network halt.
• The halt followed an exploit on Terra blockchain that saw 60 million ASTRO, 3.5 million USDC and 2.7 BTC stolen.
• ASTRO price is currently at $0.02 after falling from highs of $0.046.

ASTRO, the native token of the Cosmos liquidity protocol Astroport, has nosedived more than 60% as the community reacts to an exploit that saw the Terra blockchain halt transactions.

On July 31, Terra blockchain announced the temporary pause to operations at block height 11430400, notifying users of the downtime via a post on X.

?Attention Terra users: Please be advised that the chain will be halted shortly at block height 11430400 and transactions will not be processed during this time.

We will be working with the validators on Terra (phoenix-1) to apply an emergency patch thereafter to remediate a…

— Terra ? Powered by LUNA ? (@terra_money) July 31, 2024

The Astroport team confirmed the incident, noting that the exploit may have been due to an IBC vulnerability.

“It appears an IBC vulnerability was exploited in order to mint several tokens on the Terra chain, including $ASTRO. As the chain has now halted, no further tokens are able to be minted at this time,” the Astroport Foundation said.

IBC is an inter-blockchain communication protocol that allows for authentication and transfer of data across multiple chains. With the open-source protocol, users can access several decentralised applications and services on different blockchains.

ASTRO price dives

The halt to the Terra chain came as blockchain security firm Cyvers revealed an exploit had led to the theft of 60 million ASTRO tokens. Notably, this also impacted other tokens, with 3.5 million USDC, 2.7 BTC and 500,000 USDT.

?ALERT?@terra_money was exploited, resulting in the theft of approximately 60M $ASTRO, 3.5M $USDC, 500K $USDT, and 2.7 $BTC.

The attacker took advantage of a reentrancy vulnerability in the timeout callback of ibc-hooks.
This vulnerability was revealed in April of this year.… https://t.co/56oTpg78Cv

— ? Cyvers Alerts ? (@CyversAlerts) July 31, 2024

Astroport (ASTOR) saw a huge dip in its native token’s price, with a sharp reaction pushing the token’s price from $0.046 to lows of $0.013. ASTRO price has returned to above $0.02 as the various teams work to patch the vulnerability.