Layer 1 blockchain protocol Saga has paused its SagaEVM chain following a smart contract exploit that resulted in the loss of nearly $7 million in USDC. The project said the incident involved unauthorized withdrawals that were quickly bridged out of the network and converted into Ether. Saga halted the chain after detecting suspicious activity and identified the wallet associated with the attacker.
The team said the exploit stemmed from a coordinated sequence of contract deployments, liquidity movements, and cross-chain interactions. Saga emphasized that the incident was isolated to the SagaEVM chain and did not impact its core infrastructure, validator set, or consensus mechanisms. No evidence of compromised keys or validator failures was found.
Saga said it is working with exchanges and bridge operators to blacklist the attacker’s address and limit further risk. A full post-mortem is expected after the investigation concludes, as the broader crypto sector continues to face elevated levels of security breaches.
