MultiversX said its mainnet was hacked after attackers exploited atomicity issues at the virtual machine level, causing invalid state changes on-chain, and that the network has been paused while the engineering team tests a fix.

According to the project’s statement, the exploit targeted atomicity issues at the virtual machine layer and led to invalid state changes on the chain. MultiversX said it paused the network to contain the impact and prevent additional damage while its engineering team prepared a remediation.

The team said the proposed fix is being validated in a shadow fork environment. If that testing succeeds, MultiversX plans to coordinate with validators, exchanges, and infrastructure partners before deploying the patch to mainnet. The project did not disclose how long the validation process may take or when the network could resume normal operation.

MultiversX also said it is assessing targeted recovery plans designed to preserve confirmed transaction history and legitimate user states, while addressing only the invalid changes linked to the incident. It did not provide details on affected assets, the scale of the invalid state changes, or whether any funds were stolen.

For users, the project said no immediate action is required beyond waiting for further notices on restoration. It separately advised users not to submit or rebroadcast transactions and to avoid depositing or withdrawing EGLD and ESDT through exchanges or cross-chain bridges until operations are restored.

Why It Matters

A mainnet pause following an acknowledged exploit is one of the more serious types of operational failures for a blockchain network because it disrupts transaction finality, exchange settlement, and bridge activity at the same time. Even without a disclosed loss figure, the combination of a VM-level issue, halted network activity, and a selective recovery process raises immediate questions about infrastructure resilience and restart coordination.

The incident also puts focus on how layer-1 networks handle post-exploit state repair. MultiversX is signaling that it wants to isolate invalid changes while preserving legitimate history, an approach that may matter for user confidence, exchange support, and the broader handling of security incidents across interconnected crypto infrastructure.