Aethir halts bridge exploit, promises compensation after $90K loss

Aethir, a decentralized GPU cloud infrastructure designed for artificial intelligence, confirmed an attack on its bridge contracts and said it halted the exploit.

The platform said Friday that it had detected and contained an attack on its Aethir ($ATH) bridge contracts connecting Ethereum to other chains.

The team behind Aethir said it promptly disconnected the compromised contracts upon detection and worked with major exchanges to blacklist tracked wallets, limiting losses to under $90,000.

The update came the day after the blockchain analytics platform PeckShield reported an exploit of Aethir’s cross-chain smart contract, AethirOFTAdapter, on Thursday. Estimating the losses at $400,000, PeckShield said the exploiter bridged the stolen funds from the BNB Chain to Tron, pointing to several addresses.

Aethir’s response comes amid a broader wave of hacks in decentralized finance (DeFi), where attackers stole nearly $170 million from dozens of protocols in the first quarter of 2026.

Aethir plans compensation, says main $ATH supply on Ethereum is unaffected

After disconnecting the compromised contracts, Aethir said its main $ATH supply on Ethereum is fully intact and unaffected.

The platform said it will release a full compensation plan next week and share a list of attacker wallets, along with a detailed post-mortem and repayment plan on Discord.

“Aethir remains fully operational,” Aethir said, adding that the platform is working with authorities and exchanges to freeze funds and trace the attackers.

Related: Drift sends onchain message to wallets tied to $280M exploit

Among partner exchanges that responded to the attack, Aethir mentioned exchanges such as Binance, South Korea’s Upbit and Bithumb, as well as HTX. It noted that the Web3 cybersecurity platform ZeroShadow contributed to the hack investigation by providing expert analysis.

Aethir reported record revenue in 2025

Aethir is a decentralized GPU cloud computing network that provides distributed infrastructure for AI, gaming and enterprise workloads. Instead of relying on centralized data centers, Aethir aggregates GPU resources across a global network.

The platform reported $127.8 million in revenue in 2025, saying its decentralized physical infrastructure network (DePIN) stack counted at least 440,000 GPU containers across 94 countries by the end of the year.

The platform is backed by major Web3 investors, including Animoca Brands, Hashkey and others, with over $140 million in funds raised for the ecosystem.

Magazine: Nobody knows if quantum secure cryptography will even work