ZetaChain pauses mainnet cross-chain transfers after attack

ZetaChain paused cross-chain transfers on its mainnet after detecting an attack on its GatewayEVM contract on Monday. The network's status page showed transfers remained paused as of 9:00 p.m. ET, about nine hours after the issue was identified.

GatewayEVM is a smart contract that provides a single entry point for cross-chain interactions between external EVM-compatible chains and applications on ZetaChain. It handles messages and asset movements that bridge other chains with ZetaChain.

ZetaChain reported the exploit impacted internal team wallets only and that the team has mitigated the attack vector to prevent further losses. The project said it will publish a detailed post-mortem after the investigation is complete.

On-chain tracking by DefiLlama shows roughly $300,000 was lost in the incident. ZetaChain has not disclosed a specific loss figure.

The incident follows a separate large bridge exploit earlier this year that drained about $292 million from a protocol using a LayerZero-powered bridge. That earlier exploit produced bad debt on the Aave protocol and prompted an industry effort to stabilize affected systems. On-chain data indicate at least 10 decentralized finance projects were attacked since that event.

A post on ZetaChain's channels read, “As a precaution, cross-chain transactions are currently paused on ZetaChain.” The message added, “Investigation is still ongoing, and at this time no user funds were impacted by this attack.”

ZetaChain launched its mainnet in early 2024 and is an interoperability-focused layer 1 that integrates networks including Bitcoin, Ethereum and Polygon. Cross-chain transfers will remain suspended while the team completes its probe and prepares a full technical report.