The EigenLayer protocol, a prominent player in the crypto ecosystems, has recently faced scrutiny following an erroneous transfer of $5.5 million worth of EIGEN tokens to an attacker. This incident occurred on Friday, raising concerns among traders about potential insider involvement during the token lockup period.
Traders speculated that an insider, possibly an employee or early investor, may have violated the lockup period by selling tokens shortly after trading commenced last week. EigenLayer has since announced an investigation into the unapproved selling activity.
EigenLayer stated that an email thread involving the transfer of tokens into custody was compromised by a malicious attacker. Consequently, 1,673,645 EIGEN tokens were erroneously transferred to the attacker's address. The hacker then swapped these tokens for stablecoins and transferred the proceeds to centralized exchanges.
Current and former employees are prohibited from staking any EIGEN tokens received from Eigen Labs on EigenLayer until at least September 30, 2025. Meanwhile, the price of EIGEN has risen 0.54% to $3.22 in the past twenty-four hours, giving the token a fully-diluted market value of $5.4 billion.
EigenLayer could not be reached immediately for further comment.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, investment, or financial advice.
