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The security gloom in the cryptocurrency market has once again cast a shadow, as the cross-chain bridge— a key hub in the blockchain ecosystem— has once again become a prime target for hackers. On May 14, Beijing time, the official announcement from the TON network expansion project TAC suddenly revealed that its cross-chain layer on the TON side was precisely attacked by external hackers. In a short period, digital assets worth $2.8 million were completely stolen. This sudden security crisis instantly disrupted the project’s development rhythm and once again tightened the security nerves of the entire crypto industry.

This attack came unexpectedly, breaking the smooth operation of the TAC project without warning. According to official disclosures, hackers precisely targeted a vulnerability in the TAC cross-chain bridge on the TON side to launch their attack, successfully transferring a large amount of user assets. The stolen assets included USDT, BLUM, and tsTON among other mainstream cryptocurrencies, totaling approximately $2.8 million. Fortunately, the scope of this attack was relatively limited; TAC’s native tokens, TON mainnet tokens, and all ERC-20 tokens bridged from Ethereum were unaffected. The cross-chain bridge has now been urgently suspended to prevent further losses, and the project team immediately coordinated with global law enforcement agencies to track the flow of stolen funds and attempt to recover the assets.

The $2.8 million loss is undoubtedly a heavy blow for the TAC project. This fund not only supports the liquidity of the project ecosystem but also represents the real money of countless ordinary users. After the attack, affected users fell into panic, market doubts arose one after another, and the project’s reputation suffered an unprecedented blow. Facing user anxiety and market pressure, the TAC team quickly introduced an emergency compensation plan. To fully compensate users’ losses and rapidly restore normal liquidity of the cross-chain bridge, the project foundation plans to sell the team-held TAC token reserves through a legally compliant structured approach, using the proceeds to fill the funding gap and ensure users’ assets are not at risk of loss.

The launch of this compensation plan may seem like a helpless move to quell the crisis, but it actually harbors multiple risks. If the team sells tokens on a large scale, it will inevitably directly impact the secondary market price of TAC tokens. Under supply and demand imbalance, the token price is likely to experience significant fluctuations, potentially triggering panic selling, which would further worsen an already troubled project. On one side, users’ losses need urgent compensation; on the other, the token price faces the risk of collapse. The TAC team finds itself in a dilemma, which also reflects the widespread security and survival challenges currently faced by the cross-chain bridge sector.

All along, cross-chain bridges— as “bridges” connecting different blockchain networks— have borne the core function of asset cross-chain transfer, holding vast amounts of digital assets and naturally becoming “targets” for hackers. In recent years, security incidents involving cross-chain bridges have been frequent, from past large-scale thefts to the precise attack on TAC. Each incident exposes core issues such as technical vulnerabilities and lack of security audits. Although the industry continues to upgrade security measures, hackers’ attack methods are also evolving, making cross-chain bridges seem like an unavoidable security Achilles’ heel in the crypto industry.

This attack on the TAC cross-chain bridge is not only a crisis for a single project but also a wake-up call for the entire crypto industry. Under the trend of multi-chain integration in the blockchain ecosystem, the security of cross-chain bridges directly affects the industry’s trust foundation. Project teams need to strengthen defenses through technological R&D, security audits, and risk prevention; meanwhile, regulators and the industry ecosystem must accelerate the improvement of security standards and response mechanisms. Only through such efforts can the recurrence of security tragedies be minimized.

Currently, the TAC project team has stated that they will release a detailed attack analysis report within 48 hours. Subsequent work on fund recovery and token sale compensation is also progressing steadily. How this $2.8 million attack wave will ultimately end, whether user assets can be fully recovered, and whether the TAC project can emerge from the crisis remain closely watched by the entire crypto market. The road to security breakthroughs for cross-chain bridges remains long and arduous.