Decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol Ankr will buy US$5 million worth of BNB – the token of cryptocurrency exchange Binance – to compensate liquidity providers affected by Friday’s exploit.

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Fast facts

  • Ankr, a Web 3.0 infrastructure provider and staking platform, experienced an exploit on Friday when the perpetrator allegedly minted six quadrillion aBNBc tokens – a token that represents staked BNB on the platform – by taking advantage of an infinite mint bug
  • Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said the exchange halted withdrawals for accounts related to the Ankr exploit and froze about US$3 million worth of digital assets.
  • Ankr will issue ankrBNB tokens to affected aBNBc holders. “The ankrBNB token will continue to be redeemable, while aBNBc and aBNBb will no longer be redeemable,” said Ankr.
  • Prices of aBNBc and aBNBb – tokens with values that are meant to be pegged to BNB – have fallen to nearly zero. 
  • Ankr said the exploit resulted in some US$5 million worth of BNB in losses.
  • The Ankr exploiter has started transferring the funds to crypto mixing platform Tornado Cash, blockchain security firm Peckshield said.

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