An attacker exploited Echo Protocol on Monad, minting 1,000 eBTC and laundering proceeds through Tornado Cash as May's crypto hack tally climbed to 14.
Echo Protocol Exploit Details
The breach surfaced Monday after on-chain analyst dcfgod flagged anomalous activity tied to the Echo bridge on Monad. Blockchain security firm PeckShield then mapped the laundering route.
The attacker minted 1,000 eBTC, deposited 45 eBTC into lending protocol Curvance, and borrowed 11.29 wrapped Bitcoin (BTC).
Those funds were bridged to Ethereum (ETH) and swapped for ether, with 384 ETH later routed through Tornado Cash.
Curvance paused the affected market while investigators worked alongside ecosystem partners, citing its isolated market architecture as a reason no other pools were affected. Echo Protocol suspended all cross-chain transactions and said updates would come through its official channels.
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Monad CEO Response
Monad chief executive Keone Hon moved quickly to separate the bridge incident from the underlying network, telling followers the Monad chain itself was not compromised.
Security researchers, he said, determined that roughly $816,000 had actually been stolen, far below the $76.64 million headline value implied by the 1,000 eBTC mint.
The gap reflects limited on-chain liquidity available to the exploiter once the synthetic tokens hit the market.
Analysts have argued for months that bridge contracts and synthetic Bitcoin tokens remain the softest targets in DeFi, since a single mint function can manufacture collateral that downstream lenders accept at face value.
DeFi Hack Streak
The Echo incident marks the third major DeFi breach in five days. THORChain confirmed a vault attack on May 15 that drained more than $10 million in user assets.
Three days later, researchers identified an exploit of the Verus-Ethereum Bridge in which attackers swept roughly $11.58 million across tBTC, ether and USDC. Both incidents predate the Echo mint.
May's running count of 14 separate crypto hacks underscores a pattern visible across 2026, with cross-chain infrastructure absorbing the bulk of attacks reported this year.
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