Bitcoin, Ethereum drop; new crypto heist surfaces

Bitcoin, the leading cryptocurrency internationally, traded lower on Sunday, dropping by 0.59 percent to $46,274.16 as of 8:00 a.m. Riyadh time.

Ether, the second most traded cryptocurrency, was priced at $3,474.34, down by 0.13 percent, according to data from Coindesk.

New heist on the horizon

Inverse Finance, INV, the Ethereum-based lending protocol, announced Saturday that an attacker stole $15.6 million worth of its cryptocurrency.

The hacker targeted Inverse’s Anchor, ANC money market, artificially manipulating the price of its tokens to secure loans against extremely low collateral.

The attacker exploited a vulnerability in the Keep3r price oracle that Inverse uses to track token prices, according to blockchain security firm PeckShield.

The attacker tricked the oracle into believing that the price of Inverse’s INV token was extraordinarily high, so it took out multimillion-dollar loans on Anchor using inflated INV as collateral.

According to its announcement, Inverse has temporarily halted borrowing from Anchor. A Chainlink representative told CoinDesk that the protocol is working with the organization to develop a new INV oracle.

The company also said it would propose Decentralized Autonomous Organization to “ensure all wallets impacted by the price manipulation are repaid 100 percent,” but did not provide further details.