$47M Still Missing After Liquid Hack as Blockstream Bargains With 'White Hats'
Liquid Network said Blockstream is in ongoing talks with the attackers who exploited a flaw in Liquid’s Elements software to drain about 4,000 BTC, worth roughly $320 million. The bug let them create unbacked L-BTC and exchange it for reserve bitcoin. About 3,400 BTC were returned the next day, leaving around 600 BTC, or $47 million, still missing. Liquid said the issue was a transaction-level validation failure, not a hack of federation functionaries or a compromise of private keys. USDT and other Liquid-issued tokens were not affected, though the network was paused. The attackers claimed to be white-hat researchers, but that claim remains disputed. Liquid said Blockstream is preparing an emergency update and network operators will adjust the system to reject the invalid withdrawal and restore normal operations.
