BNB Smart Chain To Undergo Hard Fork Following Recent Exploit

The BNB Smart Chain, which was recently exploited for more than $100 million, is undergoing a hard fork to isolate and fix the compromised part of the blockchain.

The "temporary patch" will go live at 12:00 p.m. ET on Oct. 12, a GitHub post said Tuesday. The deposits and withdrawals on the chain will be halted an hour before the event occurs, Binance, the world's biggest exchange, noted in an announcement.

"We will reopen deposits and withdrawals for the BNB Smart Chain (BEP20) network once we deem the upgraded network to be stable, and we will not notify users in a further announcement," Binance added.

Binance's very own blockchain, the BNB Chain, comprises the BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) and BNB Smart Chain (BSC or BEP20). The hard fork will bring a vital change in the BNB Chain that will isolate and render the exploited chain invalid.

The exploit was implemented on Oct. 6 when attackers somehow convinced the BSC Token Hub to send them 1 million BNB tokens two times although the bridge had 150 million BNB tokens.

The BSC Token Hub is the cross-chain bridge between BNB Beacon Chain (BEP2) and BNB Chain (BEP20 or BSC). The attackers took advantage of a vulnerability in the bridge, following which the chain was halted, as per earlier reports.

Additionally, Binance was also able to recover close to $7 million that was lost in the attack, which cost the exchange around $100-$110 million, according to a post on Reddit.

Despite the recent exploit, Binance remains undeterred and is still backing Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter along with American venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, an unnamed source reportedly claimed. The crypto exchange will commit $500 million to the acquisition, while the venture capital company will commit $800 million.