Midnight token rebounds 19% after Wanchain bridge hack, Hoskinson calls for ZK revamp

The Midnight token (NIGHT) experienced a significant price drop after a bridge exploit on the Wanchain network drained 290 million NIGHT tokens. The breach occurred on the Binance-Cardano corridor and caused the token’s price to fall approximately 43% to an all-time low. However, within 24 hours, NIGHT rebounded by nearly 19%, trading around $0.022 by the time of reporting.

Charles Hoskinson, involved with the project, attributed the hack to legacy bridge architecture developed by a third party. He emphasized that the incident highlights broader software vulnerabilities, accelerated by AI-powered exploit discovery affecting not only crypto but software ecosystems in general. Despite the seriousness of the exploit, Hoskinson criticized media coverage for focusing solely on the crash without acknowledging the swift partial recovery of the token.

Hoskinson framed the hack as part of a persistent problem in crypto, noting that billions of dollars have been lost in cross-chain bridge attacks over the years, citing examples such as Ronin, Wormhole, and Nomad. These attacks commonly exploit smart contracts or multisig configurations that enable token transfers between different blockchains. He presented zero-knowledge proof systems, like Midnight’s underlying technology, as a long-term solution designed to remove trust dependencies on bridge operators and multisig setups, replacing them instead with cryptographic proofs.

The source highlights the importance of such innovations as crypto networks continue to face sophisticated and evolving attack vectors, and it positions Midnight’s approach as a potential path forward for enhancing security and trust in cross-chain transactions.