Initia Exploit Drains About $2.7 Million in Assets, Halts Network
Key Facts
Initia halted its network after a security exploit enabled the transfer of about $2.7 million in assets, in an incident the company said began at 14:59 UTC on October 23, 2026. The flaw targeted balances of unsupported tokens on the network, according to The Crypto Times, citing the project’s official account. Initia said the attacker exploited a flaw in MoveVM script storage to bypass security checks and forge system state. The incident halted the layer-1 network and its rollups. On October 26, Bithumb placed INIT on its list of assets requiring caution, while deposits and withdrawals were suspended when it issued its notice.
Initia said its native INIT token was not minted and its total supply was unaffected, explaining that the tokens created by the attacker were fake balances on the network. The project’s co-founder said on October 23 that the suspected flaw allowed unauthorized tokens to be minted, but “does not apply to native INIT tokens.” The co-founder estimated that about $2.7 million in assets had been transferred before the network was halted, including AUSD, ETH and USDC. This account distinguishes the flaw affecting bridged balances from the native token’s supply. Initia said the layer-1 network and its rollups were halted after the incident.
Initia identified the assets moved before the network was halted as 105 WETH and about 1.4 million AUSD via LayerZero, as well as about 1.08 million USDC via Noble and CCTP. After being moved out, the assets were converted into 1,135.52 ETH, The Crypto Times reported, citing a project statement. Initia pointed to an address on the Ethereum network holding the funds. The transfer routes show that the incident involved assets across more than one bridging channel. The co-founder’s estimate of the total value was about $2.7 million.
In South Korea, Bithumb placed INIT on its warning list on October 26, citing a security incident whose cause had not been disclosed or whose effects had not been resolved in a wallet or distributed ledger associated with the asset. The platform said deposits and withdrawals were suspended when it published the notice. Upbit had suspended INIT deposits and withdrawals at 12:57 a.m. KST on October 24, after detecting the incident. Upbit’s warning covered the INIT/BTC and INIT/USDT pairs, but trading remained available, according to a GNcrypto report.
INIT’s price moved sharply after reports of the exploit emerged on October 23; it fell 14% before reversing its losses and trading up about 14% during the day, according to The Block’s report published as the incident unfolded. On South Korean trading platforms, deposits and withdrawals remained suspended, while trading was still available on the two Upbit pairs covered by the warning. Bithumb set the fourth week of November, between 11/23 and 11/27, to review whether to extend or lift the warning or end trading support, noting that the date could change for internal reasons. Upbit set a review period from 23 to 27 November, after which it will decide whether to extend the review, lift the warning or end trading support. The next milestone will therefore center on the two platforms’ decisions on INIT’s status.
On remediation, Initia said a security fix was in preparation and that the project expected to complete and audit it within days. It added that work to recover the assets was underway with security partners. A post-incident report had not been issued when the information was published. No date was specified for restarting the network. It also remained unclear whether Bithumb’s and Upbit’s reviews would result in the warning being lifted or extended, or trading support being ended.