Shiba Inu has launched a 50 ETH bounty (approximately $229,000) to recover stolen funds from a major Shibarium bridge exploit that occurred on September 12, 2025. The attacker drained $4.1 million in assets by executing a sophisticated multi-step attack that combined a flash loan swap and compromised validator keys.
The exploit began when the attacker acquired 4.6 million BONE tokens from ShibaSwap via a flash loan swap. These tokens were delegated to Ryoshi Validator 1, giving the attacker control over more than two-thirds of the validator's voting power. Using compromised internal validator keys, the attacker signed a malicious state and drained assets from Shibarium's canonical bridge.
Stolen assets included 17 different tokens: approximately $1 million in ETH, $1.3 million in SHIB, $717,000 in KNINE, $680,000 in LEASH, and $260,000 in ROAR, along with smaller amounts of TREAT, USDC, USDT, BAD, SHIFU, FUND, DAI, LTD, xFUND, WBTC, and OSCAR.
In response, Shiba Inu suspended bridge operations, revoked root chain manager access, and implemented additional security measures including lengthening the half-exit time on the Plasma path and removing predicate burn-only entries. The team is working with security firms Tikkala Security and Pulse Digital on forensic analysis.
The 50 ETH bounty is contingent on the attacker returning all stolen tokens and providing a full technical disclosure of the exploit method, including how validator access was gained and tools used. The offer includes a legal waiver where applicable. This follows an initial 5 ETH bounty from K9 Finance DAO specifically for KNINE recovery, which the attacker rejected, demanding 50 ETH instead.
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