AFX Trade, a protocol running on Arbitrum, lost about 24.15 million USDC on July 22 after an attacker exploited one of its bridges. Security firm Blockaid flagged the incident at 21:30 UTC that day. The stolen funds were quickly moved from Arbitrum to Ethereum and swapped into 12,467.5 ETH, now sitting in wallet 0x6276…ebAC.
How the attacker moved the funds
Blockaid spotted the exploit just after it happened. The attacker bridged the USDC out of Arbitrum, then swapped it for ETH on Ethereum. That wallet now holds the ether. No further movement has been reported since the initial swap.
Offchain Labs clarifies: not the native bridge
Steven Goldfeder, co-founder of Offchain Labs — the firm behind Arbitrum — confirmed the exploit hit a third-party protocol, not Arbitrum's native bridge. That distinction matters: users of the core Arbitrum bridge weren't affected. But for anyone using AFX Trade's bridge, the loss is real.
July's tally climbs
This is the 14th crypto security incident in July, according to DefiLlama. Total losses for the month now sit at roughly $97 million, already surpassing June's $75.32 million. Before the AFX Trade hack, July had seen 13 hacks across various protocols totaling $72.6 million. The timing isn't great — the industry is still nursing wounds from a string of exploits earlier this year.
The attacker's ETH hasn't moved since the swap. Whether they'll try to launder it through a mixer or a privacy-focused chain remains unclear. AFX Trade hasn't publicly announced a recovery plan or a bounty. For now, the wallet at 0x6276…ebAC is the only lead.
