FBI Enlisted in ‘Humbling’ $100 Million Hack of Harmony Blockchain

Harmony's native token ONE is down 14% over the past 24 hours, while the crypto market is up 4% overall.

On Thursday, the Harmony protocol team posted an official statement confirming that an estimated $100 million worth of digital assets such as ETH, BNB, and various crypto stablecoins were stolen during a cyberattack on its platform.

The Harmony statement notes that the theft involved a total of 11 transactions involving the hacker's digital wallet address listed below, which they are sharing publicly and messaged directly to return the stolen funds. The intent is to apply public pressure to return the assets and enable monitoring of the movement of funds from the account.

Culprit 0x Address: 0x0d043128146654c7683fbf30ac98d7b2285ded00

Harmony quickly engaged law enforcement and cyber experts

Once the hack was confirmed, the Harmony statement reads that it immediately enlisted the help of forensic cybersecurity experts and law enforcement agencies, including the FBI.

"This incident is a humbling and unfortunate reminder of how our work is paramount to the future of this space, and how much of our work remains ahead of us," the Harmony statement notes.

After securing outside support, Harmony says it went public with the news via its Twitter channel. It has also publicly pledged to be transparent with updates regarding this situation, recognizing that there could be limits on what and when it can disclose publicly so as to not jeopardize the ongoing investigation.

What is Harmony and how does it work?

Harmony is an interoperable bridging network that links blockchains, cryptocurrency exchanges, and decentralized applications across the digital landscape. It operates on a proof-of-stake model to approve zippy completion of smart contracts for a variety of transactions including peer-to-peer payments, crypto trading, or NFT purchases. Here's how the Harmony website describes the project:

"Harmony is an open and fast blockchain. Our mainnet runs Ethereum applications with 2-second transaction finality and 100 times lower fees. Our secure bridges offer cross-chain transfers with Ethereum, Binance and 3 other chains. Build on Harmony, bridge to all chains. We are an open platform for your assets, collectibles, identity and governance," the site reads.

At the time of writing, Harmony's native token called ONE was down 14% over the past 24 hours to an intraday low of $0.02323 with a more than 368% spike in trading volume. The broader cryptocurrency market was up nearly 4% on the day, according to CoinMarketCap.