Symbiosis Bridge Hack: Protocol Recovers $1.1M, Offers 20% Bounty for Info on Stolen Funds

Cross-chain liquidity protocol Symbiosis has recovered 15 Bitcoin, worth around $1.1 million, following a Bitcoin bridge exploit it suffered last Friday. The company said the funds are now held in a team-controlled multi-signature wallet and confirmed other transaction routes remain functional, though its native Bitcoin bridge is still paused.

According to blockchain security firm Blockaid, the attacker minted 46.1 billion unbacked tokens from the Bitcoin bridge but ultimately extracted 4.3 Wrapped Bitcoin, worth about $336,000. Symbiosis has not yet explained how the recovered Bitcoin relates to those proceeds, and the full extent of losses has not been finalised.

Having initially offered the attacker a 20% white-hat bounty to return the funds voluntarily, a deadline that passed without response, Symbiosis is now offering that same 20% reward to any third party who can provide information leading to recovery of the stolen assets. The protocol says it will soon release a framework to compensate affected liquidity providers. This incident follows similar cross-chain bridge exploits this year, including a $4.6 million “infinite mint” attack on Secret Network in June and an $11.6 million exploit on the Verus-Ethereum bridge in May.