Berachain halts network to conduct emergency hard fork amid $128 million Balancer exploit

Berachain validators have coordinated to halt the network as the core team performs an emergency hard fork to recover user funds tied to the ongoing Balancer V2 exploit, which has now drained more than $128 million across multiple chains, according to onchain security monitors.

In a post on X, the Berachain team said the halt was “purposeful,” allowing developers to execute a rollback to address vulnerabilities affecting liquidity pools on the Berachain Exchange (BEX).

“The network will be operational shortly upon recovering all affected funds,” the team wrote, explaining that the attack primarily hit the Ethena/Honey tripool through a complex smart-contract transaction. “Given that it affected non-native assets (not just BERA), the rollback involves more than a simple hard fork.”

Berachain is a Cosmos-based Layer 1 built around a Proof-of-Liquidity consensus model and its native decentralized exchange, BEX.

Emergency action and community reaction

Smokey The Bera, Berachain’s chief smokey officer, acknowledged that halting the network was a contentious but necessary step to protect roughly $12 million in user deposits at risk.

“We recognize this could be seen as a contentious decision,” he said. “Berachain doesn’t benefit from the same degree of decentralization as Ethereum day-to-day, but when user funds are at risk, coordinating the validator set to protect them is the responsible move.”

Pausing a blockchain to address an ongoing exploit typically showcases the tension between decentralization ideals and pragmatic crisis response in DeFi. Despite temporarily suspending consensus, the decision drew widespread support from industry figures.

Onchain investigator ZachXBT praised the action: “I support the tough decision — good job on putting your users first.” Similarly, DeFi analyst DeFi Ignas wrote that halting was “the right call,” adding that “there’s nothing to gain pretending decentralization here — even Hyperliquid or other L1s aren’t as decentralized as we want them to be.”

Exploit context and technical cause

The emergency fork follows The Block’s earlier report that the Ethereum-based decentralized exchange Balancer had suffered coordinated exploits resulting in tens of millions in outflows. Security firm PeckShield later estimated total cross-chain losses at about $128.6 million.

Nicolai Sondergaard, research analyst at Nansen, told The Block that the losses “have affected Balancer V2 and various forks, though V3 appears safe.”

“It seems the exploit stemmed from a faulty access check that allowed the attacker to trigger a withdrawal command,” Sondergaard said. “The exploiter apparently faked a pile of fees into Balancer’s fee account, then hit withdraw, turning fake credits into real assets.”

He cited two key Ethereum transactions: one that planted fake fee data and another that executed the actual drain — both occurring within about 90 seconds, according to Etherscan data.

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