Dear Bitruers,
Regarding the recent GALA incident, Bitrue, one of the leading crypto exchanges, spoke out on behalf of their users and urged pNetwork to solve the problem by providing adequate compensation to users.
In the late evening of Thursday, 3 November 2022, a single blockchain address appeared to mint over $1 billion worth of GALA tokens out of thin air. This sparked fears that the unusual activity was a sign of an exploit or a rug pull.
After some investigation by blockchain security organization PeckShield, it was revealed that pNetwork—a multi-chain routing protocol for DeFi and gaming tokens, including GALA—was behind the mint. It was suggested by PeckShield that pNetwork deployed the pGALA tokens with the intention of coordinating the white hat attack and drain a faulty PancakeSwap pool.
pNetwork subsequently released a statement stating that ‘a misconfiguration of the pNetwork necessitated the redeployment of pGala’ and that they are working closely with the GALA team to restore functionality of pGALA deposits and withdrawals. GALA also maintained that the incident was caused by ‘a misconfiguration of the pNetwork’ as stated by pNetwork.
Following this incident, the price of GALA saw a significant drop of over 20% as the community feared that it was a ‘rug pull’. During this time, the blockchain address responsible for the minting of $1 billion worth of pGALA tokens began selling them on various exchanges including Bitrue, which resulted in a significant loss as the pGALA tokens were now worthless.
Since the incident, several exchanges have stepped forward to state their opinion including Huobi Global. Huobi Global has accused GALA and pNetwork of acting in ‘bad faith’ with the incident a result of a planned exploit.
Bitrue agrees that the origin of the whole incident and the main responsibility lies with pNetwork
- It’s suspected to be a self-directed attack by pNetwork to steal users' assets. The contract vulnerability could have been fixed in a more conventional and secure manner, and it should have been known to the exchange in advance to ensure security upgrades. Without any prior communication with Bitrue, pNetwork issued 55.6 billion pGALA tokens to carry out the attack, profiting up to $4 million by selling fraudulent GALA tokens, which has caused serious damage to unknowing users.
- The Bitrue risk control system detected this problem and was alerted. Although the deposits and withdrawal gate were closed almost immediately, a small number of users were nonetheless affected and purchased the fraudulent GALA tokens. After the incident, Bitrue actively communicated with pNetwork, hoping to provide 1:1 compensation to all affected users, but has yet to receive any response from pNetwork.
- The aggressive behavior and irresponsible attitude of pNetwork will seriously damage the reputation of the entire industry. Bitrue seriously condemns the actions of pNetwork and hopes that pNetwork will compensate the affected users of the entire network as soon as possible.
Bitrue wants to present the whole picture to the community and calls on everyone to follow and monitor the development of pNetwork and its next action. Bitrue is committed to putting the users first and aims continuedly to protect the safety of users’ assets. As such, Bitrue stands for the importance of transparency and credibility in the industry and condemns any form of cheating or malicious intent.