Over $200,000,000 Withdrawn From Balancer (BAL) Pools After Project Announces ‘Critical Vulnerability’

The total value locked (TVL) on Balancer (BAL) dropped by more than $200 million over a period of 24 hours after the decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol advised users to withdraw liquidity as a precautionary measure.

In a post on social media platform X, the Balancer team says it discovered a critical vulnerability in a number of liquidity pools (LPs) and tells affected users to withdraw their funds as soon as possible.

“Balancer has received a critical vulnerability report affecting a number of V2 Pools.

Emergency mitigation procedures have been executed to secure a majority of TVL, but some funds remain at risk.

Users are advised to withdraw affected LPs immediately.”

Balancer says that while only 1.4% of the total TVL is at risk, it is pausing some pools and asking users to take action.

“We believe funds in the mitigated pools (labeled “mitigated”) are safe, but nevertheless strongly recommend timely migration to safe pools, or withdrawal. Pools that could not be mitigated are labeled “at risk”. If you are an LP in any of these pools, please exit immediately.”

Following the announcement, TVL on Balancer dropped from $840 million on August 22nd to $630 million on August 23rd.

Balancer has since secured the majority of the funds. The total value locked on the protocol is now nearly $669 million.

“Due to the swift action of Balancer LPs, over 97% of liquidity initially deemed vulnerable is now SAFE.

The vulnerability has not been exploited, however, 0.89% of total TVL ($5.6 million) remains at risk, with users advised to withdraw ASAP using the UI (user interface).”

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