Overview
- The network was deliberately halted after anomalous activity late on Aug. 20 that froze block production, validators, RPC endpoints, bridges and on‑chain transactions and led exchanges to suspend deposits and withdrawals.
- MANTRA traced the issue to a vulnerability in its Cosmos‑EVM module that an attacker exploited, and the team says two MANTRA‑managed wallets were involved while user balances and exchange funds show no evidence of being taken.
- Developers built and tested patched release v8.4.0 on the DuKong testnet and in internal environments and then coordinated a validator upgrade that resumed block production at about 5:30 a.m. UTC on Aug. 22.
- The halt coincided with a sharp market reaction as the MANTRA token fell to a record low near $0.00413 and trading volume spiked roughly 600 percent, while DuKong and some ancillary services remained offline after mainnet returned.
- A full technical post‑mortem and forensic accounting are pending, and the incident highlights systemic risk from upstream libraries and the commercial and regulatory sensitivity tied to MANTRA’s RWA focus and pending Inveniam acquisition.