Symbiosis Retrieves 15 BTC Post-Exploit

Cross-chain liquidity protocol Symbiosis has retrieved 15 BTC — valued at approximately $1.1 million — following an exploit targeting its Bitcoin bridge on Friday. The protocol now offers a 20% reward for intelligence that enables further asset recovery.

The recovered Bitcoin sits in a multi-signature wallet controlled by the Symbiosis team. All other protocol routes continue to function; only the native Bitcoin bridge remains suspended. Blockchain security firm Blockaid identified the breach on Friday, reporting that the attacker minted 46.1 billion unbacked tokens through the bridge yet converted them into net proceeds of just 4.3 WBTC, valued at $336,000. Address 0x025122b60470EEe9e7947fbD922FE0d35F5d3Ba2 carried out the exploit. Symbiosis has not clarified how the 15 BTC it recovered relates to the $336,000 the attacker is believed to have realised.

The protocol initially extended a 20% white-hat bounty directly to the attacker, inviting voluntary return of the stolen assets. That offer lapsed on Sunday without acceptance, prompting Symbiosis to redirect the same percentage reward to third parties who supply actionable information. A compensation plan for liquidity providers affected by the incident will be disclosed separately. DefiLlama recorded losses of roughly $336,000, though Symbiosis has yet to publish a final loss tally.

Recent cross-chain bridge incidents

Secret Network lost approximately $4.6 million in June when an infinite-mint vulnerability was exploited. The Verus-Ethereum bridge suffered a forged cross-chain transfer attack in May, losing 5,402 ETH worth about $11.6 million. After Verus offered a 25% white-hat bounty, the attacker returned 75% of the stolen Ether and retained around 1,350 ETH — roughly $2.8 million.