Scam Alert: DeFi Protocol Balancer Faces Major Exploit

Blockchain analytics platform PerkShield has reported a likely exploit on Balancer, a popular Decentralized Finance (DeFi) protocol. The withdrawals from the platform were allegedly running to the tune of roughly $118 million in assets, drained from its vaults. Several other crypto firms like Lookonchain have quoted the value of the siphoned assets, similar to PerkShield’s claim.

Massive Withdrawals from Balancer Spotted

The new week started on a tough note for Balancer, as the Ethereum-based DEX seems to be experiencing a breach by bad actors. This event allegedly left its balance sheet with a big hole of approximately $116 million in assets, per PerkShield data.

Notably, data platform Lookonchain corroborated the hack claims per the observed withdrawals from the DEX.

Lookonchain noted that 6,587 WETH, worth approximately $24.46 million, were initially pulled out. Another 6,851 osETH, equivalent to $26.86 million, and 4,260 wstETH ($19.27 million) were also transferred out of the protocol in succession. Altogether, these summed up to tens of millions in assets moved out of the protocol’s vaults.

PeckShield noted that Etherscan transaction logs showed large, unusual transfers from Balancer’s “0xBA1…BF2C8” address to an external wallet. In a follow-up X post, Lookonchain highlighted that the exploit is still ongoing as the value of stolen assets has risen to $98 million. Less than an hour later, the figure was updated to $116.6 million.

So far, there is no confirmation of whether this is really an exploit or a mere routine liquidity transfer. Also, the Balancer team has not issued any official statement about the exploit. However, several early on-chain indicators point to a potential exploit or unauthorized withdrawal.

Scams Plague the Crypto Industry

The Balancer alleged exploit follows several scams that the crypto ecosystem has seen this year.

Recently, a US-based crypto enthusiast and his wife lost their $3 million retirement savings to a hacker. Crypto Sleuth ZachXBT noted that the perpetrator swapped the siphoned funds via bridges and went as far as utilizing Over-the-Counter (OTC) venues tied to Huione to launder the assets.

In October, Typus Finance suffered a $3.44 million exploit due to an unaudited contract and an oracle vulnerability. This marked the third major hack on Sui’s DeFi ecosystem in 2025. The perpetuals and options decentralized exchange lost 588,357.9 SUI, 1,604,034.7 USDC, 0.6 xBTC, and 32.227 suiETH.

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