Decentralized crypto exchange Nexera halts trading following $1.5m exploit

Multi-chain decentralized trading platform Nexera has suffered a $1.5 million exploit, forcing it to stop all trading operations.

Decentralized crypto exchange Nexera — also known as AllianceBlock Nexera — has fallen victim to a hacker attack, resulting in a loss of $1.5 million worth of liquidity. The breach was first reported by blockchain forensic firm Cyvers through a post on X, which flagged a “suspicious transaction” involving Nexera’s proxy contract.

According to Cyvers, the attacker managed to gain control over Nexera’s proxy contract, subsequently upgrading it with new permissions. This allowed the hacker to utilize the withdraw admin function to transfer all NXRA tokens. Cyvers says the hacker is actively selling all the exchange’s liquidity for Ethereum (ETH), and some of the funds “have already been bridged to the BNB chain.”

Shortly following the attack, the Nexera team confirmed the exploit in a separate X post, saying the team is “investigating an exploit involving smart contracts containing NXRA tokens.” While the exact nature of the hack remains unclear, the NXRA token contract has been paused, with trading halted as the exchange’s team is still finalizing its “findings.”

“We continue to investigate the exploit now and will come back here ASAP with follow-up steps. Thank you for your understanding and patience while we sort this out with the utmost priority.”

Nexera

Nexera, established in 2018 by Rachid Ajaja and Matthijs de Vries, facilitates trading between the Ethereum network and the Arbitrum layer-2 solution. The platform’s native token, NXRA, is used for various functions including transaction fees and rewards within the ecosystem. Following the news of the exploit, the value of NXRA plummeted by over 40%, now trading at $0.037, per data from crypto.news.