A Hacker Transformed 25 Cents Worth of Bitcoin into 46 Billion Counterfeit BTC Tokens via a DeFi Bridge
In early 2024, the decentralized finance (DeFi) ecosystem was shaken by a dramatic exploit that highlighted both the promise and the perils of cross‑chain bridges. An attacker, starting with a modest investment of just 25 US cents worth of Bitcoin, managed to generate an astronomical 46 billion synthetic Bitcoin tokens (syBTC) on the Symbiosis bridge. This figure represents more than 2,000 times …
Sept. 15, 2026, 1:43 p.m.