Bitcoin sidechain Liquid pauses after purported ‘white hats’ withdraw $320M in BTC

The actors told Blockstream they would return most of the 4,000 BTC after the Elements vulnerability is patched across the network.

[Update, Sept. 7, 2026, 7:30 UTC: Added correspondence between the “white hats” and Blockstream.]

Bitcoin sidechain Liquid paused operations after actors claiming to be white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 Bitcoin worth $320 million from its federation wallet. 

On Sunday, Liquid said that bridge nodes were disabled, preventing new transactions, while exchanges had halted or were preparing to halt L-BTC deposits and withdrawals. Other assets issued on Liquid, including USDT, DePix and real-world assets, were unaffected, according to the network.

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