Balancer Attack Halts Berachain Network and Initiates Hard Fork

Recently, the Balancer attack, which shook the cryptocurrency markets, deeply affected the Berachain network as well. Berachain decided to temporarily halt the network to protect user funds and initiated an emergency hard fork process. The development team stated that they had to take this measure due to a security vulnerability related to the flaws in the Balancer (V2) protocol.

According to information provided by the Berachain Foundation, validators unanimously decided to stop the network. This step was taken following negative developments in BEX, Berachain's decentralized exchange, as a result of an access control error in Balancer V2. As the largest decentralized exchange on the Berachain network, BEX hosts tokens worth approximately 50 million dollars. Smokey The Bera, a co-founder of Berachain, stated that this intervention was necessary and that user assets worth about 12 million dollars were urgently at risk.

The cause of the attack was confirmed to be the access control vulnerability in the Balancer vault, which negatively impacted Berachain's liquidity pools. Specifically, pools containing ethena (ENA) and honey (HONEY) tokens were targeted. It was determined that the attack was carried out through complex smart contracts. The Berachain team emphasized that merely rolling back a few blocks during the hard fork process might not be sufficient to rectify the situation. Additionally, it was found that a large number of off-chain (non-native) assets were affected.

Smokey The Bera stated, “This decision may not please everyone, but we cannot remain inactive while user funds are at risk.” He highlighted the necessity of a quick intervention and compared Berachain's decentralization with Ethereum, indicating that fast coordination is critical to ensure user safety.

The effects of the Balancer attack in the DeFi market were not limited to the Ethereum network. Beets Finance also announced that it was affected by the attack, stating that the total loss exceeded 3 million dollars. Following the attack, the price of Balancer (BAL) dropped by %8 in the last hour, while Berachain (BERA) lost %6 of its value.