Shiba Inu price down 11.5% after Shibarium bridge exploit

An attacker exploited the Shibarium bridge for $2.4 million after seizing validator control with a BONE flash loan

Shiba Inu fell from its monthly highs after market conditions and a security incident changed investor sentiment. On Monday, Sept. 15, SHIB was trading at $0.0000131, down 11.5% from the monthly high of $0.00001482 reached on Friday, Sept. 13.

The drop from this level followed an attack on the Shibarium bridge, which saw the protocol lose $2.4 million. The attacker took out a flash loan to borrow 4.6 million BONE, enabling the attacker to gain control of 10 of 12 Shibarium validators. With this control, the attacker drained assets from the bridge.

The attack hurt confidence in Shiba Inu (SHIB), as the token is central to the SHIB ecosystem. At the same time, confidence in the (BONE) token was hit even harder. The governance token of the Shibarium ecosystem has lost 43.5% since its monthly high of $0.341 and was trading at $0.1926.

Shibarium team denies the hack

According to the Shibarium team, the exploit does not technically constitute a hack. The team said the attacker did not compromise the protocol itself. Instead, the attacker used “stolen validator keys” to gain access to the funds.

The team also claims that the attacker moved “only a small amount” of Ethereum (ETH) and Shiba Inu tokens. Still, this line of defense did not inspire much confidence in the Shiba Inu community. Many community members and holders asked how such an attack was possible and called for an investigation.