The price of the cryptocurrency Polkadot (DOT) experienced a significant drop on April 13, 2026, falling more than 3% — from $1.22 to $1.15 — following news of the Hyperbridge hack.
This is reported by Business • Media
Details of the Hyperbridge Hack and Its Consequences
According to experts at CertiK, the hacker exploited a vulnerability in the Hyperbridge smart contract, gaining administrator rights over the DOT token on the Ethereum network. This allowed the attacker to mint 1 billion DOT tokens, which were immediately sold on the decentralized exchange Uniswap, earning 108.2 ETH (approximately $237,000). Among the factors that enabled the attack: the challengePeriod parameter was set to zero, allowing the malicious transaction to be executed instantly, and the contract’s source code was never published or audited.
“The attacker sent a malicious contract handleConsensus. It was immediately recorded in the system and executed, as the waiting time (challengePeriod) was 0 seconds.”
Attack Mechanism and Subsequent Actions
Having gained administrator rights, the hacker invoked the function DOT.mint(1,000,000,000), allowing them to issue one billion DOT tokens. These assets were immediately liquidated on the market. An expert under the nickname Verso noted that the main paradox is that despite the presence of security checks on the source field, it failed to prevent the attack, as the message was completely fabricated by the hacker. According to him, a similar scenario was used by the attacker against projects such as ARGN, MANTA, and CERE. Overall, the hacker gained over $250,000, spending several months preparing for the attack, and the stolen funds were laundered through the Railgun mixer.
After the incident, the DOT price partially recovered; however, this event once again highlighted security issues in the cryptocurrency space. Recall that in March 2026, CertiK experts recorded a record number of attacks in the crypto sphere over the past year and a half.
DOT/USDT price on Binance exchange. Source: TradingView.