Crypto: 4 Billion ONE Illegally Created, Harmony Confirms The Flaw

Harmony confirmed on August 12 a flaw that allowed the creation of 4 billion ONE without authorization. At current rates, this represents about 3.2 million dollars. The token lost 34% in 24 hours. The amount is not huge on the scale of crypto hacks. The problem is more serious: someone reportedly managed to directly increase the supply of ONE.

Harmony discovers 4 billion ONE outside the accounts

The alert came from Juiceberg on X. Harmony then confirmed the incident. A bad memory for the network: its Horizon bridge had already lost nearly 100 million dollars in 2022.

This time, no bridge emptied nor compromised wallet, at least according to available information. The attacker reportedly exploited empty blocks to create 4 billion ONE.

Another curiosity, and not a minor one: totalSupply did not immediately account for these new tokens. The supply displayed by some tools no longer matched the one actually circulating.

Harmony has not yet published a full technical explanation. The team is preparing a fix, working with several exchanges to block the funds, and considering a rollback. This last option would involve reverting the blockchain to a previous state.

The ONE crypto now costs around 0.0008 dollars after a 34% drop in one day. The 4 billion tokens created represent about 3.2 million dollars.

This is little compared to the 100 million lost on Horizon. But the comparison is misleading. Here, the issue is not so much the sum but the very possibility of creating ONE outside of the planned rules.

The ONE are already on their way to exchanges

According to Juiceberg, only about 115 million ONE remain on the attacker’s address. This represents 2.9% of the 4 billion created. The rest would have already been sold or sent to deposit addresses belonging to centralized platforms.

The margin for maneuver is therefore narrow. Harmony can still attempt to freeze what remains identifiable. For the rest, everything will depend on the cooperation of exchanges and the ability to track the movements. This kind of chase is nothing new in crypto. Funds move from one address to another, then look for an exit door. In 2026, Ethereum and Solana were already among the main targets of crypto hackers.

Harmony has one particularity. The incident does not seem limited to a third-party application. It is the network’s native token that is at the heart of the flaw.

How is not yet known.

Software bug, privilege abuse, consensus problem, or other internal mechanism: Harmony has not published enough elements to decide. This is probably more important at this stage than knowing how many dollars can be recovered.

Four years after Horizon, trust returns to the debate

In June 2022, the Horizon bridge lost nearly 100 million dollars after the compromise of its multisignature system. The FBI then attributed the attack to Lazarus Group and APT38, linked to North Korea.

Nothing today links the new flaw to these groups.

But ONE holders have memory. Four years after Horizon, Harmony must again explain why an operation impossible on paper could occur on its network.

A rollback can erase transactions. It does not erase questions.

Harmony will have to publish the exact cause, explain why totalSupply did not follow immediately, and above all demonstrate that the method used can no longer work.

The crypto sector has become much less patient with projects that accumulate incidents. More than 100 crypto projects have already shut down in 2026, sometimes after a succession of technical or financial problems. Harmony recognized the flaw quickly. It is a start. But the real issue now comes down to a simple question: if 4 billion ONE could be created once, what prevents it from happening again?