Garden Finance has plunged into major chaos after an $11 million exploit took place, sending the cross-chain bridge protocol offline. Now renowned blockchain investigator ZachXBT has chimed in saying this is an inside job.
ZachXBT claims, despite the excuses, he has damning evidence that the theft is directly linked to the Finance firm’s inner circle.
Garden Finance $11M Heist: A devastating blow to the decentralized finance ecosystem
What was billed as a mere “solver compromise” now reeks of internal sabotage, reigniting long-simmering suspicions that Garden Finance has been a magnet for illicit funds.
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The nightmare unfolded on October 30, when Garden Finance suffered a staggering $10.8 million loss scattered across multiple blockchains, including Ethereum, Solana, Arbitrum, and beyond.
The protocol’s app vanished from view, leaving users in the lurch and sending shockwaves through the crypto community.
The firm quickly issued a statement at 17:29 UTC, pinning the blame on a “compromise involving one of Garden’s solvers.”
The team insisted the fallout was confined to the solver’s personal inventory, swearing that “user funds and Garden protocol are not at risk.”
Echoing the denial, team member Punkaj hammered home the message: “Garden has NOT been hacked. One of the solvers was compromised; the impact is limited to the solver’s own inventory.”
But ZachXBT has a track record of unmasking crypto, and he isn’t buying it. At 13:33 UTC, he dropped a thread exposing the exploit’s gritty details.
He identified the thief’s Ethereum wallet as 0x98BC…2D12 and its Solana counterpart as WZy4xx…BJCH. He then revealed how the attacker managed to swap all freezeable assets to prevent being tracked.
More explosively, ZachXBT traced an on-chain message from a Garden Finance deployer address straight to the exploiter, offering a 10% white-hat bounty for the stolen loot.
The message laid bare the agony: “We are aware that our systems have been compromised across multiple blockchains, including but not limited to Arbitrum, and assets have been taken from us.”
In a chilling twist, the deployer address widely linked to Garden Finance’s founding team, even messaged the attacker with the blunt admission, “directly stated it is yours.”
The scandal has also simplified past allegations of the firm that over 25% of its transaction volume stemmed from pilfered funds. There are also rumours that Garden Finance may have had a hand in the infamous Bybit exploit.
Whispers of ties to the now roar like thunder, with critics decrying the firm as a laundering haven disguised as innovation.
“This isn’t an isolated slip; it’s a pattern of negligence or worse,” ZachXBT warned in his post.
For everyday users who relied on the firm for frictionless cross-chain magic, the betrayal stings deepest.
Will Garden Finance rise from the ashes, or is this the wilted end of a flawed bloom? While we wait for that, it is important to do our own little bit to stay safe.
