Ethereum layer-2 network Taiko halted block production on June 22, 2026, after an attacker forged cross-chain proofs to drain roughly $1.7 million from its bridge and token vault. The team urged users to withdraw funds from every bridge on the network and asked centralized exchanges to suspend deposits of the TAIKO token while it investigated. The token fell about 10% to $0.07294 in the hours after disclosure, according to CoinMarketCap. Security firm BlockSec traced the breach to a signing key that had been left publicly accessible on Taiko’s open-source GitHub repository.
A blockchain bridge is a piece of software that moves assets between two separate networks by locking tokens on one chain and releasing matching tokens on the other. When the proofs that confirm those transfers can be faked, the bridge releases funds that were never deposited.
Key takeaways
- An attacker forged withdrawal proofs to drain about $1.7 million from Taiko’s bridge before the team froze the network.
- BlockSec traced the root cause to an RSA-3072 SGX signing key committed publicly to the taikoxyz/raiko GitHub repository.
- The TAIKO token dropped roughly 10% to $0.07294 after the disclosure.
- The same class of cross-chain messaging flaw is behind more than $340 million in bridge hacks recorded this year.
Published: June 22, 2026 22:00 UTC
How the attacker forged the proofs
The exploit targeted the trust assumption at the heart of Taiko’s bridge. Taiko verifies transactions through Raiko, its multi-prover system, which uses Intel SGX enclaves to generate cryptographic proofs that a transaction is genuine. An SGX enclave is a protected area inside a processor that runs code in isolation, so the proofs it produces are meant to be trusted by the network’s on-chain verifier.
According to BlockSec, an RSA-3072 private key used to sign those enclave proofs had been committed to the public taikoxyz/raiko repository on GitHub. With the key in hand, the attacker enrolled their own prover as a legitimate participant and signed fraudulent proofs that Taiko’s verifier accepted. The bridge then authorized withdrawals against those fake proofs, releasing real assets from the Ethereum-side vault without any matching deposit on Taiko’s chain.
By roughly 2 a.m. ET, Taiko said the exploit had been contained and that withdrawals through the main bridge and token vault had been halted. The team said a full incident report would follow.
Who is affected and what comes next
The immediate exposure falls on bridge users, who were told to exit positions while block production was frozen. Centralized exchanges that list TAIKO faced a deposit suspension request, and token holders absorbed the 10% price drop. Taiko’s validators stopped producing blocks during the investigation, which paused activity across the network rather than only the bridge.
The incident lands in a year already marked by repeated bridge failures. The cross-chain messaging weakness exploited here is the same category behind more than $340 million in bridge hacks in 2026, a pattern that keeps surfacing wherever a single compromised key or forged proof can unlock funds on the receiving chain. For developers, the leaked-key root cause points back to operational security rather than a flaw in the cryptography itself.
What comes next depends on Taiko’s incident report and any reimbursement plan for affected users. The team will need to rotate signing keys, audit its repository history for other exposed secrets, and restore confidence before reopening the bridge. Whether validators resume block production quickly or wait for a full review will signal how severe Taiko considers the underlying exposure.
Frequently asked questions
How much was stolen in the Taiko bridge exploit?
The attacker drained roughly $1.7 million from Taiko’s bridge and token vault. The team halted block production and contained the exploit by about 2 a.m. ET on June 22, 2026, then asked users to withdraw from all bridges.
What caused the Taiko exploit?
BlockSec traced the breach to an RSA-3072 SGX signing key that had been committed publicly to Taiko’s taikoxyz/raiko GitHub repository. The exposed key let the attacker sign fraudulent withdrawal proofs the network accepted as valid.
Did the TAIKO token price drop?
Yes. The TAIKO token fell about 10% to $0.07294 in the hours after the exploit was disclosed, according to CoinMarketCap, as the team requested exchanges suspend deposits during the investigation.
