A critical vulnerability in the Taiko L2 network: a hacker stole $1.7 million by attacking the verification mechanism.
On June 22, the team behind the second-layer solution Taiko officially confirmed the compromise of the blockchain state verification mechanism. This event immediately jeopardized the security of all bridges deployed within the project's ecosystem. Developers strongly recommended that users immediately withdraw funds from all bridge protocols, emphasizing that previous security guarantees are no longer valid.
During the attack, the attacker managed to bypass key protective contracts, allowing access to liquidity pools. According to estimates from the analytical platform Lookonchain, the damage amounted to approximately $1.7 million. The hacker stole native TAIKO tokens as well as various wrapped ETH (wETH). Part of the stolen funds — 1.99 million TAIKO (about $189,000) — has already been deposited on the MEXC exchange. At the time of writing the analysis, the attacker still held 870.8 ETH (about $1.52 million).
The Taiko team is actively coordinating with the security council and key ecosystem partners to contain the incident and prevent further losses. As a preventive measure, developers have asked centralized exchanges to suspend TAIKO deposits until an official notice. This is a standard but extremely important practice that helps limit the hacker's ability to quickly convert and withdraw assets.
The market reaction was immediate: within 24 hours, the TAIKO coin price collapsed by 11% — from $0.09 to $0.07. The 15-minute TAIKO/USDT chart on the HTX exchange shows a sharp decline immediately after the news of the hack was published, confirming panic among holders.
This incident echoes the recent attack on the Axelar bridge with the Secret Network protocol on June 19, where damages amounted to $4.67 million due to an "infinite mint" vulnerability. It is clear that the infrastructure of cross-chain bridges and L2 solutions remains one of the most vulnerable points in DeFi.
My analysis: The attack on Taiko is not just a single hack but a wake-up call for the entire L2 industry. Blockchain state verification mechanisms are the foundation of security for any rollup, and their compromise calls into question the architectural reliability of the project. Users should be extremely cautious: if the team cannot promptly provide a detailed post-mortem and evidence of the vulnerability fix, trust in the network could be undermined for months. I recommend temporarily refraining from using any bridges associated with Taiko until the situation is fully resolved.