Bridge Troll: 1 Billion Bridged DOT Magically Appears, Then Disappears Into $237K

Bridged DOT on Ethereum just had a very bad day. An attacker minted 1 billion DOT tokens through the Hyperbridge gateway contract and dumped the entire supply in a single transaction, netting 108.2 ETH (approximately $237,000). The price instantly cratered from $1.22 to fractions of a cent.

Blockchain security firm CertiK flagged the exploit, noting the attacker used a forged message to seize control of the admin role in the Polkadot token contract on Ethereum. This allowed the unauthorized minting of those 1 billion tokens.

Good news for DOT holders on Polkadot itself: the native relay chain and actual DOT tokens remained untouched. The damage was confined to the bridged, or wrapped, version of DOT.

Neither Polkadot nor Hyperbridge had issued an official response at the time of writing.