Flow Blockchain overlever hacking og ruller tilbake transaksjoner

The $FLOW token unexpectedly plummeted by about 50%, dropping from $0.17 to $0.08 on Binance before partially recovering. The cause was a hack that resulted in the attacker withdrawing approximately $3.9 million in $FLOW and other assets equivalents. This is confirmed by data from the official Flow Foundation report and analysis from partners like Find Labs.

What Happened?

On December 27, 2025, a hacker exploited a vulnerability in the execution layer of the Flow network. The attack allowed the malicious actor to mint millions of $FLOW tokens and drain liquidity pools worth over $4 million (initial user estimates, but officially $3.9 million). The funds were withdrawn through bridges to Ethereum, including Celer, deBridge, Relay, and Stargate, and then partially laundered via protocols like THORChain and Chainflip. The attacker's Ethereum address: 0x2e7C4b71397f10c93dC0C2ba6f8f179a47F994e1, already flagged and reported to exchanges for freezing.

The Flow team responded promptly: the network was halted in coordination with validators, and they contacted exchanges (including Binance, Coinbase, and Kraken) to block suspicious transactions. In the end, to invalidate the hacker's transactions, the network was rolled back to a checkpoint before the incident, essentially performing a hard fork, erasing about 6 hours of activity (from 11:25 PM PST on December 26 to 5:30 AM PST on December 27). This invalidated not only the attacker's actions but also all legitimate transactions in that window - users will need to resubmit them after the restart.

The official statement from Flow Foundation emphasizes that user balances existing before the attack were unaffected, and the exploit did not impact deposits. The network has already returned to read-only mode, with a full restart expected in the coming hours after final validation of the fix. A complete post-mortem is promised within 72 hours.

Criticism and Consequences

However, not everything went smoothly. deBridge co-founder Alex Smirnov accused the Flow team of lacking coordination with bridge partners.

The rollback led to potential issues: duplicated balances for those who withdrew funds during the window, and unrefunded deposits for incoming transactions (examples: ~$200k and ~$50k via deBridge, plus large USDC transfers via LayerZero at $220k and $180k). Some users, like @ingerxyz, complain that their wallets with $FLOW and USDC "disappeared" due to the rollback and are demanding compensation.

This isn't the first blow to Flow: the network, known for NBA Top Shot, has long been considered "dead", low activity, lack of significant users, and a recent scandal with the Blocto wallet shutdown amid exit scam allegations. The $FLOW drop below its ICO price ($0.10) has intensified discussions that such half-dead tokens are vulnerable to hacks or bankruptcies of the companies behind them. As noted by @AzFlin, the rollback effectively "mints" new funds out of nowhere for the hacker who already withdrew millions, while honest users lose out.

The incident fits into the 2025 trend: according to Chainalysis, crypto thefts exceeded $3.4 billion, with a 51% increase in hacks from North Korea. Flow highlights the risks of centralized elements in "decentralized" networks, private keys and admin access remain weak links. The community is calling for better transparency and involvement from groups like SEAL to prevent such cases.

Despite the quick response, trust in Flow has been undermined. Will this be the end for the "dead blockchain" or a chance for revival? Stay tuned for updates, the team promises transparency, but the market has already reacted with a drop. In any case, it's a warning: in crypto, nothing is eternal, especially for forgotten projects.