Cronos Blockchain Pauses After Tectonic Lending Exploit, $119.5M at Risk

Cronos Network has paused operations after an exploit hit Tectonic, its lending protocol, with on-chain analysis estimating that about $119.5 million was drained from lending pools. 

Tectonic has not confirmed the final loss, but its team is investigating as users are warned not to interact with the protocol.

Tectonic Exploit Puts $119.5M in Pools at Risk

Following the attack, Tectonic responded quickly by posting on X, saying it was aware of the incident and urged users to stop using the protocol until the platform is confirmed to be safe.

“As a precaution, please do not interact with the protocol until we confirm it is safe to do so.”

The size of the loss remains the biggest unanswered question. Tectonic has not published a confirmed figure. However, an on-chain analysis using a Cronos archive node estimates that about $119.5 million was drained in 65 minutes.

The analysis also shows only about $1.73 million remained across the affected markets. It recorded 752 liquidations involving roughly $8.71 million seized from other users, while about $32.6 million in bad debt was left behind.

TONIC Price Manipulation Triggered the Attack

The exploit centered on the price of Tectonic’s TONIC token. According to the on-chain analysis, the attacker first deposited 3,091 TONIC and borrowed 3,697 TONIC in the same block.