$116M In Crypto Assets Gone – Balancer Suffers One Of Defi’s Largest Exploits

What Happened

Over $116 million in crypto assets have been drained from Balancer Protocol, marking one of the most severe decentralized finance (DeFi) exploits of 2025.

At approximately 9:12 AM on Monday, blockchain analytics firm Lookonchain first raised the alarm, reporting that Balancer had been exploited for $70.6 million in crypto assets.

Balancer $116M DeFi Exploit Unfolds

The scale and precision of the exploit suggest a highly coordinated and technically sophisticated operation spanning several DeFi ecosystems.

As of press time, 0xaa760d53541d8390074c61defeaba314675b8e3f" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">on-chain data shows the hacker’s DeBank portfolio holding around $95 million, while roughly $21 million has been distributed to various wallets, likely an early move toward obfuscating and liquidating the stolen assets.

The exploit has also triggered a ripple effect across Balancer-forked projects, as many associated protocols reported security breaches or precautionary withdrawals.

Unclear Root Cause and Ongoing Investigation

Balancer developers have acknowledged the exploit but have not revealed the root cause or the extent of the loss.

However, early signs point to a complex cross-chain exploit vector that may have targeted the protocol’s unique liquidity architecture.

Moreover, today’s exploit is not the first time the Balancer protocol has faced attacks and drains from its pools.

Just like the recent exploit, the vulnerable assets were spread across various networks, including Ethereum, Polygon, Arbitrum, Optimism, Avalanche, Gnosis, Fantom, and zkEVM.

Market Context

Initial data revealed that the attacker siphoned off 6,587 WETH ($24.46 million), 6,851 osETH ($26.86 million), and 4,260 wstETH (~$19.27 million) across multiple blockchains.

Within just thirty minutes, Lookonchain updated that the attack was still ongoing, with total stolen funds exceeding $116 million.

Why It Matters

Lido, a leading liquid staking platform, confirmed that certain Balancer V2 pools were impacted but clarified that Lido’s core protocol and user funds remain safe.

Details

Panic withdrawals began soon after news of the attack broke, most notably from a whale wallet (0x0090) that had been dormant for three years but suddenly withdrew $6.5 million from Balancer pools.

Major DeFi Protocols Respond

Major Ethereum-based protocols have been quick to respond.

In an official statement, Lido noted:

“Out of an abundance of caution, the Veda team — curators of Lido GGV — has withdrawn its unaffected Balancer position.”

Meanwhile, Aave, another top DeFi lending protocol, emphasized that it remains completely unaffected.

Aave explained that its Aave/stETH stkBPT pool uses a custom version of Balancer V2 that operates independently of Balancer’s vulnerable components.

“The Aave protocol has no dependencies over Balancer V2 and is unaffected to the best of our knowledge,” the team stated.

In August 2023, the protocol suffered a $2 million drain associated with a code vulnerability, and then the following month, over $900,000 was drained again across its V2 pool.

Growing DeFi Security Concerns