Nomad suffers $190Mn crypto theft

U.S. crypto firm Nomad has been hit by a $190 million theft, the latest such heist to hit the digital asset sector this year. Nomad tweeted that it was aware of the incident and was currently investigating, without giving further details.

The heist targeted Nomad's ‘bridge’- a tool which allows users to transfer tokens between blockchains. Crypto analytics firm PeckShield said $190 million worth of users’ cryptocurrencies were stolen, including ether and the stablecoin USDC. Other blockchain researchers put the figure at over $150 million.

Nomad operates a so-called blockchain bridge, which allows people to move tokens from one blockchain to another, solving the challenge of interoperability between different types of cryptocurrencies.

Nomad blamed impersonators posing as Nomad and providing fraudulent addresses to collect funds. Nomad makes software that connects different blockchains - the digital ledgers that underpin most cryptocurrencies.

The theft follows the hack of blockchain bridge Harmony in June, which lost about $100 million in the attack. These bridges are seen as especially vulnerable to hacks partly because of their relative newness and inevitable bugs and are therefore frequently targeted by cybercriminals. Recent hacks include the $320 million wormhole hack in February and the more than $600 million Ronin Network hack in March.