• pNetwork has announced that it got exploited for 277 BTC, worth over $12 million at press time.
• The DeFi platform is the latest one built on the Binance Smart Chain to fall victim to an exploit in what has now become a worrying trend.

It has happened again – yet another decentralized finance (DeFi) platform has lost millions of dollars in the latest exploit. pNetwork, a cross-chain DeFI platform built on the Binance Smart Chain has fallen victim to an attack and lost 277 Bitcoin, worth $12.4 million at press time. The platform has, however, assured all its users that their other funds are safe.

pNetwork is a cross-chain DeFi platform that allows users to move digital assets across different blockchains. It allows users to deposit BTC into a smart contract and mint pBTC, a wrapped BTC token. They can then move the value of the BTC from the Bitcoin blockchain and onto other chains, including EVM compatible chains that offer features such as DeFi and NFTs.

pNetwork announced via Twitter that they had been attacked on Sunday night. According to the team, the attacker had been able to leverage a bug in the network’s codebase and attack pBTC. He had stolen 277 BTC, most of which was collateral, the team revealed.

“The other bridges were not affected. All other funds in the pNetwork are safe,” they claimed.

The pNetwork team is working on a solution for users who were affected by the attack, it stated.

“Please give us back the money you stole,” pNetwork pleads

The DeFi platform is pleading with the hacker to give back the money and for this, the project will pay him a bounty. While this may sound strange, it did work for a DeFi platform that had been hacked and lost $600 million, a record in DeFi at the time.

Poly Network was hacked in early August by an anonymous cybercriminal who made off with BSC, Polygon, Ethereum and other digital assets worth $600 million. Shortly after, the network wrote to the hacker urging him to return the hacked assets.

“It’s very unwise of you to do any further transactions,” the project told the hacker.

The hacker heeded the call and returned the funds. He even got a job at Poly Network as the chief security advisor.

pNetwork is hoping its hacker can be as kind to return the funds. It stated:

To the black hat hacker. Although this is a long shot, we’re offering a clean $1,500,000 bounty if funds are returned.

Finding vulnerabilities is part of the game unfortunately, but we all want DeFi ecosystem to continue growing, returning funds is a step in that direction