On August 12, Harmony's native ONE token collapsed after an unauthorised mint added over $4 billion more tokens to the network. Juiceberg, an on-chain analyst, initially reported that the newly created tokens were being moved quickly after noticing unusual empty blocks. Exchanges received almost $2.8 billion ONE, which increased selling pressure and caused the token's price to drop by over 30%, reaching lows of $0.0005 to $0.0007.

$4 Billion ONE Tokens Appear in Unauthorized Mint

Unusual on-chain activity, rather than an initial notice from Harmony, revealed the problem. Juiceberg, an on-chain analyser, reported what appeared to be an unauthorised generation of approximately $4 billion ONE tokens and identified empty blocks associated with the activity.

The mint's size became the market's primary issue right away. The current supply may be greatly impacted by the unapproved creation of billions more tokens, especially if such tokens are later transferred to trading platforms.

About $2.8 billion of the recently created ONE coins were swiftly transferred to exchanges, according to Juiceberg. Their actions sparked concerns that the freshly produced supply would be sold on the market, which would put more pressure on ONE to decline.

The market reacted severely to the abrupt rise in circulating supplies. With the token hitting lows between $0.0005 and $0.0007, ONE fell more than 30%. Concerns about the tokens' immediate movement as well as the possible dilution experienced by current ONE holders were reflected in the sell-off.

Harmony Confirms Exploit & Targets Four Wallets

After confirming that an unauthorised mint had impacted the network, Harmony took steps to contain the situation. The group requested that bitcoin exchanges block and freeze assets that could be linked to four suspicious wallet addresses.

Both Harmony-format and Ethereum-style hexadecimal addresses are included in the addresses released by Harmony:

• one1uap8dx2z0qsjxqthm5flgcxkeepsz3gsrghnfn
• 0xe7427699427821230177dd13f460d6ce43014510
• one17u300a40ll5wphd8kj5hktryhdjq3ml9f4phy4
• 0xf722f7f6afffe8e0dda7b4a97b2c64bb6408efe5

While the investigation is ongoing, the exchange freeze request is meant to stop the impacted tokens from being transferred or sold via centralised trading platforms.

Additionally, Harmony published a patch meant to prevent more illegal minting. As part of its containment strategies, the project also put the Horizon bridge on hold.

The patch, wallet monitoring, and Horizon bridge pause together demonstrate that the team's top priority is to prevent the situation from worsening while they investigate how the unauthorised mint occurred and what happened to the newly generated tokens.

We are asking all exchanges to block and freeze funds that traces back to these 4 wallet addresses:

one1uap8dx2z0qsjxqthm5flgcxkeepsz3gsrghnfn
0xe7427699427821230177dd13f460d6ce43014510

one17u300a40ll5wphd8kj5hktryhdjq3ml9f4phy4
0xf722f7f6afffe8e0dda7b4a97b2c64bb6408efe5… https://t.co/wiR6uQOazW

— Harmony 💙 (@harmonyprotocol) August 12, 2026

ONE’s Collapse Raises Supply & Dilution Concerns

As an exceptionally huge number of ONE was created as a result of the incident, the market reaction was especially severe. The $4 billion unlawful tokens that have been disclosed do not just reflect stolen funds; they also represent freshly produced supply.

This distinction is crucial for holders because, even if part of the impacted tokens is recovered or frozen, the incident raises questions about how the network will handle the extra supply. Existing holders may see significant dilution if the recently issued tokens continue to be valid.

That issue became more urgent with the transfer of about $2.8 billion ONE toward transactions. Traders needed to account for the potential for a significant number of unapproved tokens to enter the open market.

As it evaluates the damage, Harmony is currently thinking about rollback and compensation possibilities. In addition to raising concerns about which transactions should be undone and how the network should handle valid activity taking place in the vicinity of the incident, a rollback might be able to undo impacted activity.

Another difficulty is that any judgment about compensation would have to take into account holders who were impacted by the abrupt dilution and decline in ONE's market value.

2022 Horizon Hack Brings Back Community Criticism

The most recent incident also brings back memories of Harmony's far bigger security disaster in 2022, when assets worth about $100 million were taken, and the Horizon bridge was hacked.

The community's response to the new event is still heavily influenced by the prior attack. As a result, the most recent exploit has been analysed both as a novel technical issue and in light of Harmony's prior security incident response.

ZachXBT, a blockchain investigator, publicly denounced the project, claiming that those who helped during the 2022 Harmony Bridge attack were not fairly compensated for their efforts and that he would not monitor the most recent event.

ZachXBT claims that those who assisted with major freezes during the 2022 event made contributions that led to law enforcement seizures, but Harmony did not pay them. His remarks underscore the dissatisfaction of several security community members with the treatment of external researchers and investigators following the last $100 million exploit.

Harmony's current priorities are to stop further illegal minting, contain the four wallets that have been detected, and ascertain the ultimate fate of the billions of freshly generated ONE tokens. The following choices will dictate how the project manages the technical consequences as well as the harm to the trust of current ONE holders, with the Horizon bridge halted, rollback and compensation options under discussion.

I will not be tracking this incident and think no one should assist them for free.

Harmony took advantage of people who assisted during the $100M Harmony Bridge exploit by DPRK in 2022 and rewarded $0 for significant freezes which lead to LE seizures and simply said “good job”

— ZachXBT (@zachxbt) August 12, 2026

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