Once the exploiter gained access to the bridged DOT token contract, they proceeded to mint 1 billion bridged DOT tokens—which exceeded the actual bridged DOT token supply by around 2,800 times. For reference, the total native, non-bridged DOT supply is only 1.6 billion tokens.
This incident was isolated to only bridged DOT on Ethereum. Hence, native DOT on the Polkadot relay chain, parachains, and other assets across Hyperbridge remain completely secure and unaffected.
After minting the tokens, the attacker then sold them directly on decentralized exchanges, making away with around $237,000—the amount that was available in trading liquidity.
Should there have been sufficient liquidity, someone with around 1 billion DOT tokens could stand to gain more than $1 billion as the token trades around $1.17, down 4.6% in the last 24 hours.
At that mark, DOT has now fallen more than 68% in the last year of trading and is nearly 98% off its November 2021 all-time high of $54.98. DOT is currently just above its all-time low price of $1.15, set in February.
