Shiba Inu Lead Kaal Dhairya Calls $4 Million Hack ‘Serious Incident’ — Vitalik Buterin Says Focus On Low-Risk DeFi Than Memecoins
Kaal Dhairya, the lead developer of the Shiba Inu SHIB/USD ecosystem, labeled the recent hack incident as “serious” on Sunday, but indicated that the team was able to contain the immediate damage.
Damage Could Have Been Worse, Says Dhairya
In a blog post, Dhairya provided updates about the security breach on Shiba Inu’s Layer 2 network, Shibarium, which resulted in the loss of $4 million in cryptocurrencies.
“This is a serious incident. We’ve contained the immediate damage (it could have been worse) and are working with independent specialists and authorities,” Dhairya said.
Dhairya stated that bridge operations on Shibarium remain restricted, and additional security safeguards have been added to processes, including deposits, withdrawals, claims, and rewards. Additionally, the Bone ShibaSwap BONE/USD tokens, which were used to validator voting power, have been recovered and secured.
Evidence indicates key compromise across those validators. We agree that this exposes decentralization shortcomings,” Dhairya acknowledged. “Decentralization has always been the plan, but it was deprioritized while we focused on other roadmap items
They refused to share a timeline for bridge resumption, adding that safety is the priority right now.
A Rift Brewing?
Curiously, Dhairya said they aren’t the lead of Shiba Inu, adding, “I am done trying to keep it all together, especially when the so-called ‘leaders’ who benefited from all this get to walk away, or walk away in the name of ‘earning from other places to fix things.’”
See Also: Shiba Inu (SHIB) Price Predictions: 2025, 2026, 2030
What Happened On Shibarium?
The hack resulted in the loss of 17 different coins, including $1 million in Ethereum ETH/USD, $1.3 million in SHIB, and smaller amounts of USDC USDC/USD, Tether USDT/USD and Shiba Inu Treat (TREAT). The attacker temporarily gained validator voting power, i.e, a 2/3 majority, to push malicious software on Shibarium.
Shytoshi Kusama, the lead ambassador of the Shiba Inu ecosystem, confirmed that they were actively working with developers and dismissed reports of their absence as “preposterous.”
Buterin’s Support For Low-Risk DeFi Over Memecoins?
Meanwhile, Ethereum ETH/USD creator Vitalik Buterin urged the community to put a stronger emphasis on low-risk decentralized finance, including payments, savings, and collateralized lending, calling them “culturally congruent” with the network’s goals.
“It’s just not possible to say with a straight face you are excited about the ecosystem because it’s positively changing the world, if its single largest application is political memecoins,” Buterin remarked.
Price Action: At the time of writing, SHIB was exchanging hands at $0.00001246, down 3.95% in the last 24 hours, according to data from Benzinga Pro.
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.