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DeFi blue-chip Balancer suffers massive attack, losing $12.8 billion overnight.
This is not a drill; this is the biggest DeFi hack of 2025.
How could an attacker simultaneously exploit a critical vulnerability in V2 across four chains? Why did it lie dormant for years? Are 27 forked projects also doomed?
One tweet to understand the whole incident
Scale of loss
The stolen BAL tokens, estimated at $116.6 billion to $128.6 billion, have plummeted by more than 8%, and TVL is expected to shrink by half from $7.5 billion.
The stolen assets were 6,851 osETH (approximately $26.86 million), 6,590 WETH (approximately $24.5 million), and 4,260 wstETH (approximately $19.3 million).
This is Balancer's third and worst attack since 2020.
Attack Timeline
Twenty-four minutes of terror
At 03:36 GMT, security agencies detected an anomaly; the initial report was 70.9 million; by 04:00, losses had surged to 88 million; by 04:30, they had surpassed 98 million; and by 05:05, they had ultimately exceeded 11.6 billion.
Balancer remained silent for nearly an hour; a whale that hadn't moved in three years urgently withdrew $6.5 million; the attacker's wallet remains active.
Time is money; the cost this time was 12.8 billion.
Cross-chain attack
An unprecedented cross-chain robbery
The attacker attacked four chains simultaneously.
Ethereum $91 million, Arbitrum millions of dollars, Optimism millions of dollars, Base millions of dollars
The reason is that Balancer deploys the same V2 code on every chain.
One vulnerability can cause four times the damage
Technical vulnerabilities
Fatal flaw: swap imbalance mechanism
Attack principle
Using flash loan to borrow huge sums of money, batchSwap was used to create discrepancies between the ledger and the actual balance. From these discrepancies, a huge amount of assets was withdrawn to repay the loan, netting hundreds of millions in profit.
The key issue is that the contract failed to properly verify token balance. This vulnerability was discovered as early as 2023 but has not been fully fixed.
attacker
Mysterious Hacker
A highly specialized understanding of the V2 architecture enables simultaneous coordinated attacks across four chains, precisely exploiting known historical vulnerabilities.
Funds were transferred to a newly created wallet with no gas records, immediately dispersed and transferred, and are currently still active and not frozen.
Security experts suspect a link to an insider who knew about the 2023 vulnerability.
chain reaction
Domino effect: Over 27 forked projects are at risk. BNB Chain issues emergency warning and suspends operations. Lido urgently withdraws all Balancer positions. Other AMMs face a crisis of confidence.
A vulnerability threatens the entire ecosystem
Dark history
Being hacked three times, each time worse than the last.
$500,000 loss in 2020; V2 flash loan attack in August 2023; $238,000 front-end hijacking in September 2023; $12.8 billion in losses by November 2025.
Total losses exceeded $1.3 billion
The question is why the historical vulnerabilities haven't been fixed? The answer is that some V2 pool governance has been transferred and cannot be suspended.
Deep Revelation
The harsh truth about DeFi security
Auditing is not a panacea; decentralization comes at a cost; it cannot be halted; technical debt is fatal; migration is too slow.
The industry must change: from one-time audits to continuous monitoring; from complex innovation to security first; from rapid deployment to cautious migration.
A lesson worth 12.8 billion
Future impact
How will this event change DeFi?
Short-term regulatory intervention leads to a surge in demand from leading insurance companies; medium-term security standards accelerate V3 migration; long-term DeFi matures, leading to a paradigm shift in architecture.
Hackers steal $12.8 billion; industry learns a lesson worth $1 billion.
Immediately check Balancer V2 funds, be wary of forked projects, and purchase smart contract insurance.
Security is always the top priority in DeFi.
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Balancer DeFi Cryptocurrency Security Vulnerability Ethereum Report Completion Date: November 3, 2025 - Author: X@OutageVictfzev (Please like and share if you found this helpful!)
