US cryptocurrency firm Harmony said on Friday that thieves stole around $100 million worth of digital currencies from one of its flagship products, the latest in a series of digital embezzlements. in an industry long targeted by hackers.
Harmony develops blockchains for so-called decentralized finance — peer-to-peer sites that offer unregulated loans and other services — and NFTs (non-fungible tokens).
The company said the theft had hit its Horizon “bridge,” a tool for transferring cryptocurrencies between different blockchains — the basic infrastructure used by cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ether.
Thefts have long plagued companies in the cryptocurrency industry. More than $1 billion has been stolen from blockchain bridges so far in 2022, according to British digital currency market analysis firm Elliptic.
Harmony wrote on Twitter that it is “working with national authorities and forensic experts to identify the culprit and recover the stolen funds”. The company did not provide further information.
Elliptic, which tracks publicly visible blockchain data, said hackers stole several different cryptocurrencies from Harmony, including ether, tether and USD Coin, which they later exchanged for ether using so-called “decentralized exchanges”.
In March, hackers stole around $615 million worth of cryptocurrencies from the Ronin Bridge, used to transfer cryptocurrencies in and out of the Axie Infinity game. The United States said North Korean hackers were responsible for the attack, one of the biggest on record.
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