Chain hacked and halted, but INIT jumps 16%
Bottom line: The chain is down and it’s still up 16%. I don’t get it, and I can’t bring myself to buy.
At 11:41 last night, Initia officially announced that its L1 and all Rollups had ground to a halt.
Spreek was the first to spot it: A hacker exploited a “Day 0” MoveVM vulnerability to mint 2 million AUSD without authorization, then bridged out around 1.4 million AUSD, 105 ETH, and 1.08 million USDC. The funds were consolidated in an Ethereum wallet holding 1,135.5 ETH, worth $2.73 million.
Upbit immediately suspended INIT deposits and withdrawals and issued a risk warning.
Co-founder Zon personally acknowledged the vulnerability, but added that the bug “does not affect the native INIT token.”
As soon as the news broke, INIT got slammed 14%, with a sharp wick down to 0.113, then promptly bounced back.
As I’m writing this, INIT is at 0.151, up 16% in 24 hours. Futures volume is $34.9 million, and funding rates are near zero—neither longs nor shorts have gained much ground.
Put simply, this is a classic “the bad news is out” sentiment play.
The chain really is down. There’s no restart time yet, the hacker could dump 1,135 ETH at any moment, and nobody knows whether the vulnerability has been fixed.
But the market has chosen to ignore all that, based solely on the co-founder’s line that it “does not affect the native INIT token.” The assets stolen were AUSD and bridged assets, so the bulls have something to cling to.
I don’t think that logic holds up.
With the chain down, the ecosystem’s DEXs, lending protocols, and Rollups are all out of action. INIT’s fundamentals are basically zero. This 16% move is purely short covering after the sell-off plus a sentiment bounce—it has nothing to do with value.
I can’t bring myself to touch a coin whose chain is halted. Just watching.
Here’s what would make me admit I’m wrong: If it holds above 0.1556, that would show the market really doesn’t care about the $2.7 million or the shutdown, and I’ll admit I was wrong.
If it breaks below 0.13 (around the 24-hour open), sentiment will fizzle. First, I’d look at last night’s low of 0.115; below that, it’s 0.10.
So, which side are you on?
Is this a case of the chain being down while the token keeps rising and sentiment rules the day, or will the hacker dump 1,135 ETH and send INIT back to 0.115?
I’m betting on the latter. What about you?
$INIT $ETH $BTC #Initia #Hacker