Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Nexera has burned 32.5 million of its native NXRA tokens that were stolen as part of a recent hack.
In a Thursday post on X, blockchain security firm PeckShieldAlert confirmed the action, announcing that these tokens have been permanently removed from circulation.
In the crypto world, “burning” refers to the process of permanently removing a certain number of tokens from circulation.
This is usually done to reduce the total supply of a cryptocurrency, which can potentially increase the value of the remaining tokens.
Nexera Says Hack Was Not Related to Smart Contracts
Following the hack, the Nexera team launched a technical investigation, which revealed that their smart contracts were not compromised.
However, to prevent further exploitation, the Nexera team swiftly froze the remaining 32.5 million NXRA tokens in the attacker’s wallet, concluding that only $440,000 worth of the stolen tokens had been effectively compromised.
The project said the NXRA burn is a crucial step to ensure they cannot be used, traded, or circulated within the market.
Update 2
We recently concluded our technical investigation into the exploit and have determined that there is no issue with our smart contracts.
As mentioned in the previous update, we have already acted on freezing the $NXRA assets remaining in the attacker’s wallet and…
— Nexera (@Nexera_Official) August 7, 2024
The security incident occurred on August 7, resulting in the theft of $1.5 million worth of digital assets, including NXRA tokens.
The coordinated attack targeted multiple projects and protocols within the DeFi space.
The hacker managed to steal 47 million NXRA tokens, valued at approximately $1.76 million, and began liquidating a portion of them for Ether.
Additionally, some of the stolen funds were transferred to the BNB Chain.
Updates from Nexera indicated that the exploit was part of a broader attack affecting several projects.
Despite the breach, Nexera stated that there was no need to issue a new NXRA token, and the existing token address would remain unchanged.
The attacker had already interacted with exploit-related addresses on exchanges like KuCoin and MEXC, prompting these platforms to suspend deposits, withdrawals, and trading of NXRA tokens.
Other exchanges were also notified and urged to take similar precautions.
Hacks Continue to Plague Crypto
This incident is part of a worrying trend in the cryptocurrency world, following a similar breach at WazirX, an Indian cryptocurrency exchange, which lost over $230 million to a hacker three weeks prior.
The breach was the second-largest crypto hack of 2024, highlighting the ongoing vulnerabilities within the sector and the urgent need for robust security measures.
In total, the crypto sector faced significant losses in July as hackers stole approximately $266 million through 16 separate breaches.
Some major victims of July’s crypto hacks included algorithmic protocol Compound Finance, which lost $24 million, bridging protocol Li.Fi ($10 million), decentralized AI protocol Bittensor, and liquidity provider Rho Markets, each losing $8 million.
In many instances, the stolen funds were moved to the cryptocurrency mixer Tornado Cash, a technique used by hackers to obscure the origin of the funds and evade detection.
In contrast to July, June saw a lower loss of $176 million spread across approximately 20 incidents, highlighting a sharp increase in the value of stolen assets in just one month.
