Hackers stole millions of dollars of cryptocurrency from decentralized finance protocol Balancer on Monday.
Estimates varied, but most blockchain security companies recorded losses of more than $120 million. At least $99 million of the stolen funds were in ETH.
DeFi industry stalwart, Balancer initially said it was aware of the exploit and was investigating it. Cryptocurrency security experts said the incident was caused by faulty access control mechanisms that were compromised by the attackers.
On Monday afternoon, the company released a longer message explaining that the incident started early in the morning.
“All pools that could be suspended have been suspended and are now in recovery mode,” the company said, noting that it has ties to several other crypto platforms that it cannot unilaterally suspend.
“Balancer is committed to operational security, has been extensively audited by leading companies, and has a long history of bug bounties to incentivize independent auditors. We work closely with our security and legal teams to ensure user safety and conduct a prompt and thorough investigation.”
They are still working with experts to examine what happened and plan to release an autopsy at some point.
Balancer has warned users that fraudulent messages claiming to come from the company’s security team are circulating and that people should not interact with them.
Several other blockchain organizations linked to Balancer have announced efforts to resolve the incident. The Berachain Foundation said it shut down its network as its team took emergency measures to protect user assets. The organization was able to freeze some funds stolen from its platform. Other crypto platforms like Gnosis, Sonic, Beefy and others have taken similar steps.
Balancer has experienced several minor security incidents in the past, but has been audited approximately 10 times by blockchain security companies.
Last week, hackers stole around $10.8 million from another DeFi platform called Garden Finance.
More than $2 billion in cryptocurrency was stolen by hackers in the first half of 2025, according to blockchain security firm Chainalysis.
Most of the funds were stolen by hackers allegedly linked to the North Korean government – which has made crypto theft a key source of revenue for its ballistic missile program.
A report released last week by the governments of the United States, France, Germany, Japan and others said North Korea was responsible for the theft of at least $1.65 billion in cryptocurrency between January and September 2025.
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