Ethereum

insurance

TAC Protocol

DeFi

<h2 id="bridge-drained-funds-recovered">Bridge Drained, Funds Recovered</h2>
<a href="https://x.com/TacBuild" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">@TacBuild</a>'s TON-Ethereum bridge was exploited on May 12, with an attacker draining roughly $2.8 million from the protocol. <cite>The exploit targeted the TON side of TAC's cross-chain layer, with losses spread across <a href="https://x.com/search?q=%24USDT&amp;src=cashtag_click" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">$USDT</a>, <a href="https://x.com/search?q=%24BLUM&amp;src=cashtag_click" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">$BLUM</a>, and $tsTON.</cite><cite>TAC said the vulnerability was isolated to native TON Jettons bridged from the TON network, and that the TAC token itself, TON, and all ERC-20 tokens were unaffected.</cite>
<cite>TAC's total value locked sat at approximately $2.74 million as of May 14, per DefiLlama, meaning the $2.8 million exploit roughly equaled the protocol's entire TVL.</cite>
<cite>TAC has since reclassified the incident as a white hat event, after the hacker apparently took the team up on its offer to keep 10% of the moved funds in exchange for returning the rest to its multisig wallets.</cite><cite>With the refunds processed, the 10% bounty came to about 13 ETH plus 300 ZEC.</cite>
<h2 id="no-litigation-compensation-plan-in-motion">No Litigation, Compensation Plan in Motion</h2>
<cite>The team said that after the exploiter returned funds to the designated multisig wallet on Ethereum and a corresponding address on TON, it decided not to pursue litigation, a decision coordinated with its security partners and law enforcement.</cite><cite>The bridge remains paused while forensic analysis and remediation are ongoing, with a post-mortem to be published soon.</cite>
For affected users, the path to compensation is unconventional. <cite>The team has opted not to raise fresh capital or tap an insurance fund, and instead plans to sell tokens from its reserves to reimburse those affected.</cite><cite>A firm timeline, token amount, or sale format has not yet been published.</cite>
<cite>Offering hackers a percentage of stolen funds in exchange for returning the majority is standard practice in Web3.</cite> The TAC case fits a broader pattern of cross-chain bridge vulnerabilities in 2026. <cite>DeFi protocols have lost more than $750 million to hacks and exploits so far this year.</cite>
<cite>The TAC token has taken a beating since the exploit, with its price dropping more than 21% over the past week and market cap falling to $79 million from over $91 million before the May 12 disclosure.</cite>
Sources: <a href="https://www.mexc.com/news/1093414" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">MEXC News: TAC labels $2.8M bridge exploit a white hat incident</a> <a href="https://hacked.slowmist.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">SlowMist Hacked: TAC Bridge Incident Log</a> <a href="https://memeburn.com/hackers-drain-2-8m-from-tac-protocol-bridge-tons-defi-gateway-under-fire/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow">Memeburn: TAC Protocol Bridge Hack, $2.8M Drained on TON-ETH Link</a>

TAC's $2.8M bridge exploit is now a white hat after the hacker took the 10% bounty

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