Symbiosis Bridge Hack: Protocol Recovers 15 BTC After Exploit, Bitcoin Route Still Offline

Cross-chain liquidity protocol Symbiosis has recovered approximately 15 BTC after an attacker exploited its Bitcoin Bridge on September 11. The protocol quickly halted its native BTC routes and isolated the affected bridge from the rest of its infrastructure to contain the incident. The recovered funds have been moved to a team-controlled multisig wallet while accounting work continues.

Symbiosis initially offered the attacker a white-hat bounty of 20% of the stolen funds if returned by a set deadline. After that deadline passed, the same 20% reward is now being offered to anyone who provides information leading to further fund recovery. Blockchain security firm Blockaid noted that the attacker minted a much larger amount of tokens than they were able to convert into other assets, suggesting the incident could have been far worse.

Other parts of the platform, including routes on EVM networks, TRON and TON, continued operating normally, and third-party integrations with Chainflip and THORChain now let users swap bitcoin while the native bridge stays offline. Symbiosis has not given a timeline for restoring the bridge and says it is working with security researchers to assess the full impact. Liquidity providers exposed through the Bitcoin route are being contacted directly as a compensation framework is prepared.