Alephium Bridge Hack Drains $815K as May Attacks Top $326M

• Hackers exploited Alephium’s Token Bridge on Ethereum, stealing $815,000 amid a surge in cross-chain bridge attacks.
• Alephium urged immediate withdrawal from Uniswap and PancakeSwap to limit further losses and shut down its bridge protocol.

On May 31, 2026 (UTC), Cryptopolitan reported hackers drained $815,000 from Alephium’s Token Bridge on Ethereum by minting 13.76 million wrapped ALPH tokens. The attackers used an offchain vulnerability in the bridge backend to execute the theft, bypassing the suspected guardian key compromise cited by Blockaid in initial assessments.

Alephium responded quickly, advising liquidity providers to withdraw funds from Uniswap and PancakeSwap pools to prevent further exploitation of the unauthorized tokens. The protocol was immediately paused, and users were directed to halt trading and liquidity provision with wrapped ALPH tokens until further notice.

The Alephium hack follows a wave of cross-chain bridge exploits in May 2026. Combined losses from such attacks have surpassed $326 million this year, according to Cryptopolitan and DefiLlama. Recent incidents include a $5.4 million loss via Gravity Bridge and a $11.5 million exploit on the Verus-Ethereum Bridge.

Token bridges remain a primary target for decentralized finance attacks. Cryptopolitan data indicates bridge protocols have been responsible for nearly $3.2 billion in historic crypto hack losses, accounting for about 20 percent of all incidents. The Alephium exploit highlights persistent risks in offchain bridge backend infrastructure and underscores the urgent need for improved security across DeFi protocols.