An attacker exploited an Ethereum (ETH)-based cross-chain bridge contract for Polkadot's (DOT) token, minting 1 billion bridged tokens and crashing the wrapped asset's price from roughly $1.22 to near zero.
PeckShield Flags DOT Bridge Takeover
On-chain analysts and blockchain security firm PeckShield reported that an unknown attacker seized control of the bridge contract's admin permissions.
The attacker transferred those permissions to a malicious address, then used that access to mint approximately 1 billion bridged DOT tokens on Ethereum.
Data from OnchainLens and Lookonchain showed the attacker dumped the freshly minted supply in a concentrated set of transactions. The sale netted roughly 108.2 ETH — about $237,000 — while the bridged DOT price fell from around $1.22 to fractions of a cent.
Multiple sources stressed that the exploit targeted only the Ethereum-bridged version of DOT. The native Polkadot relay chain token was not affected. Polkadot had not issued an official response at the time of reporting.
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Bridge Exploits in 2026
The incident adds to a growing list of cross-chain bridge attacks this year. In February, IoTeX's ioTube bridge lost an estimated $4.3 million after a compromised private key gave an attacker full administrative control. Earlier in 2026, Resolv Labs suffered a $25 million loss when attackers minted unbacked stablecoin tokens through a cloud infrastructure breach.
According to a Chainalysis report, centralized bridge failures account for more than 60% of all crypto hacks, with cumulative losses exceeding $2 billion. PeckShield's March data showed roughly $52 million stolen across about 20 incidents that month alone, nearly double February's total.
Polkadot's own ecosystem has faced similar pressures before.
In August 2022, the network's DeFi hub Acala was exploited through a liquidity pool misconfiguration, allowing an attacker to mint more than 1.2 billion of its aUSD stablecoin. That incident prompted governance reforms and highlighted the persistent risk in bridge infrastructure across the Polkadot ecosystem.
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