Another decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol has fallen prey to an exploit. The Harmony protocol had been gaining popularity among DeFi users over the last year as the DeFi space bloomed. But it has now suffered the same fate as many protocols in the space. On Friday, the protocol announced that it has been the victim of a theft where the perpetrator(s) had made away with about $100 million in cryptocurrencies.

DeFi Platform Suffers Hack

The Harmony protocol announced via Twitter that the platform had been hacked. In the tweet, it explained that the theft had taken place on the Horizon bridge in the early hours of the morning. There was a total of $100 million, which had been siphoned off the network in Ethereum. The attacker had moved all of the funds to a single wallet and at the time of this writing, the funds are still sitting in the wallet with a balance of 85,867 ETH.

Related Reading | Inside The Three Arrows Capital (3AC) Collapse And The Lessons It Has Taught Crypto

Following the exploit, Harmony had notified various exchanges to shut down the Horizon bridge. This means that users will not be able to carry out transactions on this bridge. However, it will also keep the attacker from being able to continue the exploit.

The protocol has assured the public that the team is working with authorities to identify those behind the theft. This includes working with the FBI and various cyber security firms according to a follow-up tweet that was posted by the protocol. 

ONE price falls to $0.02 | Source: ONEUSD on TradingView.com

In another tweet, Harmony emphasized that the need for trustless decentralized bridges is higher now than ever. As such, it takes everyone to build out the technology.

The protocol has not been the only DeFi platform to succumb to an exploit this year. In the first quarter of the year alone, more than $1.2 billion was lost to DeFi protocols, and given that this is a relatively young space, more exploits are expected to happen. 

Related Reading | Is Solana Truly Decentralized? Solend’s Actions Sparks Debate

The Ronin bridge hack is the largest hack so far in the history of DeFi, shattering the previous Poly Network record when a hacker made away with more than $600 million from the network.