Crypto Chaos: Garden Finance’s $10.8M Exit Strategy 🌱💸

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Garden Finance recently suffered a hack, with at least $10.8 million in reported losses. Crypto sleuth ZachXBT identified the hacks just days after calling out the platform for facilitating money launderers.

This isn’t the first time a similar incident has occurred in the crypto space. Earlier this year, THORChain enabled North Korean hackers to launder funds, but they stole from THORChain’s founder a few months later. Talk about crypto’s favorite soap opera-everybody’s a villain, and the plot twists are paid in Bitcoin.

Garden Suffers Major Hack

Earlier this week, Garden Finance announced that it had bridged over $2 billion in tokens, but several prominent sleuths accused it of money laundering. Because nothing says “trust us” like getting hacked right after being called out for letting criminals play hide-and-seek with their cash. Classy.

ZachXBT claimed that over 25% of its traffic came from illicit sources, while Tayvano alleged that DPRK-based criminals were using it en masse. Sounds like a party where everyone’s invited… as long as you’ve got a criminal record.

It’s ironic, then, that those same investigators already have another reason to address the company. Earlier today, ZachXBT reported that Garden suffered a $10.8 million hack:

“Garden Finance was likely exploited for $10.8M+ on multiple chains. An address related to the team sent a message onchain to the alleged exploiter offering a 10% whitehat bounty. A few days ago, I pointed out…how Garden Finance was ignoring victims,” he claimed via Telegram.

His initial message mentioned only $5.8 million in losses before it was revised to a substantially higher number. The edit also claimed that “all freezable assets were quickly swapped.” In other words, it’s unclear exactly how much Garden lost in this hack, but the damage is significant. The exact number is as clear as my Uncle Bob’s life choices after a margarita.

Garden itself claimed that the hack compromised multiple blockchains, but it only mentioned Arbitrum directly. The firm also said that “assets have been taken from us,” rather than suggesting that user funds were a primary target. For the moment, we don’t have any more details about the attack’s technical specifications. Because nothing says “transparency” like a press release written in riddles.

An Ironic Misfortune

Still, all things considered, Garden isn’t the first company to suffer an ironic hack like this. THORChain, for example, was accused of laundering money from hackers on several occasions, including from North Korea’s feared Lazarus Group. And then? DPRK-based criminals stole $1.3 million from THORChain’s founder a few months later. It’s like a playground fight, but with more zeros and fewer snacks.

Incidents like this generally don’t encourage white hat crimefighters to investigate these cases. Besides, if it’s impossible to freeze any stolen assets, what could they even do? You can’t track a digital wallet like it’s a GPS-enabled toddler.

Community investigators could assemble evidence for future prosecution, but that may be totally impractical. Why bother when the only thing more infinite than blockchain is human stupidity?

Ultimately, Garden Finance will have to hope that its 10% bounty incentivizes the hackers to cooperate. Otherwise, it’ll be difficult to get much closure beyond an analysis of the breach itself. Good luck, Garden! Maybe next time, try not to act like a bank if you’re just going to store everyone’s money in a digital piñata. 🎉

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2025-10-30 19:42