NetMind platform ‘has not been compromised,’ claims team after miner hack FUD

NetMind AI claimed that the token crash was caused by an individual miner being hacked, not by a platformwide exploit.

Blockchain artificial intelligence (AI) platform NetMind has denied rumors that it was hacked on March 15, claiming in an X post that the exploit was limited to an individual miner and did not affect the platform itself. The news comes after the platform’s token, NMT, had dramatically fallen due to a large sale, which led to speculation of a widespread exploit.

NetMind is a cloud computing platform that allows graphics processing unit (GPU) owners to process data in exchange for tokens. It utilizes a blockchain network called NetMind Chain, and NMT exists on this network. There is also a version of the token on BNB Smart Chain.

At approximately 1:15 pm UTC, the price of NMT nosedived from $11.34 to $2.77, a decline of nearly 76%.

X users began speculating that NetMind may have suffered a mint exploit, allowing an attacker to print an unlimited number of tokens and dump them on the market, destroying the token’s value.

At 4:19 pm UTC, the NetMind team posted to X, denying the rumors. “The NetMind team is aware of the recent situation that has caused a mass selloff of $NMT and is actively working on mitigation,” it stated. “Initial indications are that this was an exploit/hack related to one of the networks early miners who mined 440k $NMT,” it added,implying that the initial price drop was caused by the sale of these 440,000 tokens. The team confirmed the platform “has not been compromised by any hack or malfunction.”

This reassurance seems to have calmed markets. At the time of publication, the token’s price has regained most of what it lost, settling at $9.70, a 250% increase from the bottom. The recovery means that NMT is down only 14% from its preincident price. 

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In an X post, decentralized finance investor Alan claimed to have discovered the address of the hacker that caused the price decline, stating, “The wallet in question is: 0x4484771fa71bf0c1C679e452e57F3a5CD9E60220.”

Blockchain data on BNB Smart Chain shows that this address bridged multiple batches of tokens from the NetMind chain to BNB Smart Chain and subsequently sold them on PancakeSwap. Cointelegraph could not determine by the time of publication whether any of these sales took place at the exact time of the price drop.