BONE Climbs 40% on Shibarium Exploit-Related Market Reaction

BONE Jumps 40% After Flash Loan Attack on Shibarium

Shiba Inu’s layer-2 network, Shibarium, experienced a coordinated exploit on Wednesday after an attacker used a flash loan to gain majority validator control, drain bridge assets, and temporarily suspend staking.

Shibarium developer Kaal Dhariya said the attacker purchased 4.6 million BONE tokens, the network’s governance token, via a flash loan. This allowed them to access validator signing keys and achieve majority power on the network.

The attacker then signed a fraudulent network state, siphoning assets from Shibarium’s bridge connecting it to Ethereum. Because BONE is staked and subject to an unstaking delay, the funds remain locked, providing developers a narrow window to respond.

In response, the Shibarium team paused all staking functions, moved remaining funds into a 6-of-9 multisig hardware wallet, and launched an internal investigation. The source of the breach—whether a compromised server or developer machine—remains unclear. Estimated losses are near $3 million.

Security firms Hexens, Seal 911, and PeckShield are assisting, and law enforcement has been notified. Dhariya also extended a conditional offer to the attacker: returning the funds could result in no charges and a possible small bounty.

The incident triggered a sharp market reaction. BONE initially more than doubled before settling at a roughly 40% gain, while SHIB rose over 8%.