DeFi | Nigeria’s Polkadot Project, HyperBridge, Compromised, Minting ~$2 Billion in Tokens, Loosing Over $200,000
An attacker has exploited a vulnerability in the Hyperbridge interoperability protocol to mint roughly $2 billion worth of fraudulent Polkadot tokens on Ethereum, though the actual financial loss was limited to about $230,000 due to low liquidity, according to blockchain security researchers.
The exploit targeted Hyperbridge’s Ethereum gateway contract, allowing the attacker to manipulate permissions and generate around 1 billion wrapped DOT tokens without proper collateral backing, reports said.
According to a detailed report, the attacker didn’t only target DOT, but was able to mint multiple other wrapped assets on Hyperbridge, including another approximately $1 billion in ARGN, as well as MANTA and CERE.
Despite the scale of the mint, the attacker was only able to convert a small portion into real assets, roughly 108 ether, as the market for the bridged token lacked sufficient depth to absorb the supply.
Polkadot said its native blockchain and DOT token were not affected as the incident was isolated to the Ethereum-based wrapped version of the asset.
Hyperbridge, a cross-chain protocol designed to transfer assets between blockchains, paused its bridging operations following the incident while the issue is investigated.
Founded by Seun Lanlege and David Salami, Polytope Labs, the company behind HyperBridge, has attracted global attention for developing a bridge protocol valued at over $200 million, positioning it as one of the most advanced blockchain innovations to emerge from the continent.
The attack highlights ongoing security risks in blockchain bridges which have historically been a major target for exploits due to their role in linking separate networks.
Researchers estimate that since 2021, attacks on bridges alone have cost users and protocols over $3 billion in assets, a figure reinforced by academic analyses.
Over the last several years, bridges have handled tens of billions of dollars in asset transfers – acting not just as niche tools but as backbone infrastructure for decentralized finance. For example, aggregated statistics suggest over $100 billion in cumulative value has passed through cross-chain bridges since 2022.
That enormous throughput is precisely why attacks on these systems can be so damaging.
Bridges accounted for ~50% of all laundered back value in 2025 alone.
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