The native token of Griffin AI, GAIN, experienced a catastrophic price collapse of over 80% on September 25, 2025, after an attacker exploited a vulnerability in its smart contract. The attacker minted an additional 5 billion GAIN tokens, inflating the total supply from the original 1 billion, and immediately dumped 147.5 million tokens on PancakeSwap, netting approximately 2,955 BNB (worth around $3 million).
This mint-and-dump attack occurred just as GAIN made its market debut, having been listed on major exchanges including Binance Alpha, KuCoin, HTX, MEXC, and Gate.io. The attacker converted the proceeds to 720 ETH and funneled them through Tornado Cash to obfuscate traces, raising security concerns. On-chain analysts, including GoPlus Security, attributed the exploit to an unauthorized LayerZero peer setup, similar to a previous attack on the Yala project.
In response, Griffin AI urgently requested all exchanges to pause trading, deposits, and withdrawals of GAIN to prevent further transactions by the attacker. The team also removed authorized liquidity pools on BNB Chain and is coordinating with security partners to mitigate the breach. Daily trading volume surged by 126% to $96 million amid the crash, predominantly on decentralized exchanges, while investor losses sparked community outrage over the perceived fraud.