Wanchain Bridge Hack Sends Midnight Token to Record Low

The attack mainly hit Wanchain's Cardano bridge, wiping out almost all of the backing for the wrapped NIGHT version on BNB Chain. Wanchain has shut down the bridge while the investigation continues.

Key Takeaways

• An attacker drained about 515 million NIGHT from Wanchain's Cardano bridge, leaving the bridge reserves almost empty.
• The reserves dropped from around 527 million to about 12 million NIGHT, and Wanchain has shut down the bridge during the investigation.
• NIGHT fell to around $0,019, partly because of selling pressure after about 290 million tokens landed on decentralized exchanges.

Midnight (NIGHT) sank to a record low after an attacker drained roughly 515 million tokens from Wanchain's Cardano bridge. Early analysis suggests the exploit was aimed at the bridge reserves rather than the Midnight network itself, but the token still came under immediate selling pressure.

Bridge Reserves Nearly Empty

According to on-chain analyst Paul, the Cardano-side lock address was drained between 14:46 and 14:55 UTC. That address backed the Wanchain-wrapped NIGHT on BNB Chain, so the attack quickly undermined the collateral for that version of the token. Only NIGHT was removed from the contract, while the other bridged assets were not affected.

The reserves fell from about 527 million NIGHT to just around 12 million, meaning roughly 97 percent of the bridge holdings were wiped out. Wanchain has since shut down the bridge while the investigation is ongoing.

Selling Pressure on DEXs

The attacker routed the stolen funds through newly created wallets and sold part of them on Cardano-based exchanges. Roughly 290 million NIGHT later showed up on decentralized exchanges, adding more pressure to the price. At the time of writing, NIGHT was trading near $0,019 (€0,017), down about 27 percent on the day.

The incident follows a familiar pattern. Cross-chain bridges have been a repeated target for years and have led to more than $4.3 billion (€3.8 billion) in losses since 2021. According to the project documentation, Wanchain's WanBridge relies on Secure Multiparty Computation and Threshold Signature Scheme to protect cross-chain assets, but those systems can still be exposed if a lock address or bridge layer is compromised.

What This Means for European Readers

For European crypto investors, the key point is that bridge risk is often harder to spot than token risk itself. This kind of event shows that a token can behave very differently across networks depending on where the backing or liquidity is held. The Midnight Foundation said the core network continued operating normally, which makes the distinction between protocol risk and bridge risk even clearer.