Harmony Token Sinks as Attacker Mints 4 Billion ONE, Dumping on Exchanges
Harmony's ONE token lost a third of its value after an attacker minted 4 billion unauthorized tokens, immediately flooding exchanges and threatening severe dilution for remaining holders.
Harmony has confirmed an exploit on its layer-1 blockchain that allowed an attacker to mint roughly 4 billion ONE tokens without authorization. The unauthorized creation, equivalent to about 26% of the circulating supply, drove the token down 37% to $0.00077. The project has since deployed a patch to halt further minting and paused its bridge.
The immediate market impact has been severe because the attacker moved with exceptional speed to monetize the theft. According to on-chain analyst Juiceberg, roughly 2.8 billion tokens were funnelled onto exchanges as the price crashed. "The overwhelming majority (~97%) is already on exchanges," Juiceberg noted, leaving only about 115 million ONE on-chain.
Harmony has identified four specific wallets linked to the exploit and is asking exchanges to freeze any associated funds. "We are working with our team and appropriate exchanges to stop and freeze the funds. We are working on a patch and rollback options." It took the team roughly five hours from the initial detection to deploy a patch preventing further minting, with another update required to address the existing tokens.
This exploit carries stark echoes of the project's troubled history, specifically the June 2022 Horizon bridge hack that drained $100 million. The FBI later attributed that attack to North Korea's Lazarus Group. Four years ago, Harmony proposed minting new tokens to reimburse victims, but abandoned the plan after backlash over dilution; now, an attacker has forced a comparable inflationary event.
For investors, the incident underscores the fundamental risks lingering in smaller blockchain networks. ONE currently holds a market capitalisation of just $11.5 million, ranking it outside the top 1,000 crypto assets and down over 99% from its October 2021 peak. Furthermore, Harmony's totalSupply endpoint failed to register the newly minted tokens, leaving price trackers to inaccurately list a circulating supply of 14.87 billion.
