On January 26, 2026, the cross-chain aggregation protocol SwapNet experienced a severe security incident. Users who had not enabled the "one-time authorization" feature faced a concentrated attack, resulting in approximately $16.8 million in assets being drained by hackers and quickly transferred across chains. The funds were dismantled, exchanged, and moved across chains in a very short time. The attack path has not been fully disclosed, but it has caused significant shockwaves throughout the DeFi ecosystem. This incident has brought to light a long-ignored issue: when users repeatedly compromise between security and convenience, is the so-called "experience optimization" truly reducing friction, or is it laying the groundwork for the next systemic disaster?
$16.8 Million Disappeared Instantly: Attack Impact and Fund Trajectory
● Attack Timeline and Impact Scope: On January 26, at 8 AM UTC+8, SwapNet was reported to have a serious security vulnerability. Attackers focused on wallets that had not enabled the "one-time authorization" feature, quickly calling for authorizations and transferring assets in bulk. Based on publicly available information, this round of attacks directly affected user assets utilizing the related authorization paths, leading to a significant blow to the protocol's overall TVL and ecosystem trust in a short time. Security audits, authorization design, and risk control processes have all come under scrutiny.
● Fund Flow and Cross-Chain Transfer: According to on-chain tracking data, approximately 10.5 million USDC was quickly exchanged for about 3,655 ETH after the attack, which was then transferred to the Ethereum mainnet, becoming the clearest mainline of funds in the entire incident. This operation shows that the attackers completed the conversion of assets from stable valuation to high liquidity mainstream assets in a very short time, and attempted to dilute traces through cross-chain and mainnet deep liquidity pools, creating conditions for further money laundering.
● Information Boundaries and Uncertainty: Currently, public channels have not disclosed the specific technical methods of the attack, nor is there credible information regarding the identity or organizational background of the attackers. The SwapNet team's subsequent compensation or handling plans also lack details. All content beyond the level of "security vulnerability," "funds stolen," and "cross-chain transfer" remains in the realm of speculation. Without an audit report and an official complete review, any conjecture about the attack's principles or loss diffusion paths will only obscure the real risk points that should be focused on.
One-Time Authorization Becomes a Breach: The Paradox of Convenience
● Original Design Intent: From experience optimization to risk concentration: In the DeFi world, the "one-time authorization" mechanism was originally created to solve the problems of frequent signatures and repeated pop-ups. Users only need to authorize a large or even "unlimited" amount for a certain contract or aggregator during the first interaction, allowing subsequent transactions to skip repeated confirmations, significantly lowering the interaction threshold, improving matching and arbitrage efficiency, and catering to professional users' demands for a "low-friction trading environment."
● The Paradox of Unenabled Users Becoming Victims: The most impactful aspect of the SwapNet incident is that the affected group is defined as "users who did not enable the one-time authorization feature." In traditional security intuition, refusing full and long-term authorization seems more cautious, but in the specific implementation of this protocol, the authorization paths for this group of users may rely on different contracts or aggregators, with the implementation logic and risk control boundaries differing from the "one-time authorization" main channel, exposing them as the more vulnerable side in this vulnerability, creating a strong psychological contrast of "being more cautious yet more harmed."
● The Old Problem of Authorization Granularity and Custodial Responsibility: This incident has reopened a long-discussed yet still lacking consensus issue: to what granularity should authorization be detailed, how should permissions be limited and revoked, and where should the protocol's responsibility boundaries be drawn in designing authorization mechanisms for "extreme black swan scenarios." For a long time, developers have preferred to evade responsibility by stating "users bear the consequences of their private keys and authorizations," while security advocates repeatedly call for limiting the maximum available amount at the contract level, increasing authorization whitelists, and implementing time locks to combat human laziness and shortsightedness through technical means.
The Great Escape of Revoking Authorizations: On-Chain Self-Rescue and Consensus Restructuring
● Urgent Call from Security Teams: During the escalation of the incident, the on-chain security agency PeckShieldAlert quickly issued a warning, clearly advising users to "immediately revoke authorizations for all independent aggregators outside of the 0x one-time authorization contract." This statement is not solely directed at SwapNet but elevates this incident to a risk warning for the entire authorization ecosystem, pointing to all protocols relying on external aggregators for smart routing or quote optimization.
● On-Chain Revocation and Intelligence Sharing: As the alert spread, users began to massively call revoke contracts and authorization management tools to conduct a "carpet cleaning" of high-permission contracts in historical interactions, resulting in a dense volume of revocation transactions on the blockchain in a short time. Meanwhile, the community began to establish public tables around suspicious addresses, marking the paths of attack funds, analyzing the transfer trajectory after USDC was exchanged for 3,655 ETH, and forming a spontaneous intelligence-sharing network in Twitter and on-chain browser comment sections, with a "temporary drill" around authorizations, blacklists, and risk control tools unfolding on-chain.
● Reinforcement of Authorization Management Consensus: The SwapNet incident has poured cold water on the view that "authorization management is the minimum security baseline for ordinary users." Whether it is one-time authorization or seemingly low-frequency small authorizations, their essence is the opening of contract execution permissions. Once the protocol itself, the aggregators it relies on, or upstream routing experiences vulnerabilities, authorizations are instantly transformed into the "withdrawal permissions" of attackers. This forces both users and protocols to re-examine: authorization tools, monitoring alerts, and revocation paths are no longer optional but must be regarded as the top priority functions in protocol design and user education.
Intertwining Solana and Ethereum: Security Pressure on Multi-Chain Financial Infrastructure
● Mainnet Migration and Security Narrative Contrast: After the attackers completed the exchange of approximately 10.5 million USDC for 3,655 ETH, they transferred the funds to the Ethereum mainnet, choosing to digest risk assets on the public chain with the deepest liquidity and most complete financial infrastructure. Almost simultaneously, discussions around Solana deepened, with its ecosystem viewed by many as a candidate for the next generation of high-performance financial infrastructure. This intertwining of "assets fleeing to Ethereum, narrative focusing on Solana" highlights the contradiction between security and efficiency in the multi-chain era.
● Security Demands Targeting Financial Infrastructure: Backpack CEO Armani Ferrante has publicly stated that the Solana ecosystem is refocusing on "financial infrastructure," aiming to accommodate more on-chain financial activities. Financial infrastructure means higher transaction density and capital volume, and it also means that once an incident occurs, the impact will not be limited to a single protocol but will create a systemic shock to the entire chain's reputation. Although the SwapNet incident occurred in other protocols, its cross-chain and cross-ecosystem transfer paths serve as a wake-up call for all public chains attempting to become "settlement layers" or "transaction highways": security is no longer a private matter within each chain but a shared burden among peers.
● Cross-Chain Money Laundering Channels and Collaborative Pressure: From the breach of SwapNet to the multi-step operations of fund cross-chain transfers, exchanges, and entry into the Ethereum mainnet, this essentially constitutes a cross-chain money laundering channel. With the proliferation of cross-chain bridges, aggregation routers, and multi-chain wallets, attackers can more easily switch asset forms and address labels between different public chains, dispersing the pressure of regulation and on-chain analysis. This poses new demands on the multi-chain ecosystem: not only must each chain have sound internal risk control, but they must also form collaboration in intelligence sharing, blacklist synchronization, and monitoring of suspicious flows; otherwise, the security achievements of a single chain will ultimately be diluted in cross-chain flows.
Black Swan Overlapping with Whale Movements: An Amplified On-Chain Emotional Landscape
● The Overlap of a 9-Year Dormant Whale Awakening: At the same time that the SwapNet security incident ignited public opinion, on-chain monitoring discovered that a dormant 9-year ETH whale suddenly transferred approximately $145 million in assets. This action coincided closely with the timing of the security incident; although there is no known direct connection between the two, they resonate on an emotional level: the awakening of old funds, the migration of large assets, and the explosion of protocol security are interpreted as "the old cycle capital and new cycle risks appearing together."
● Passive Amplification of Security and Liquidity Sensitivity: When hacker attacks and whale movements occur simultaneously on mainstream public chains, the market's sensitivity to "whether the main chain is still safe and reliable, and whether liquidity will suddenly withdraw" is amplified. For Ethereum, on one side, attackers are bringing 3,655 ETH into the mainnet, while on the other side, a long-established whale is mobilizing $145 million in assets. These on-chain actions collectively shape a high-uncertainty liquidity environment, prompting some investors to make quicker hedging decisions or reassess asset distribution across public chains.
● Defensive Reallocation by Institutions and Early Players: From the perspective of on-chain behavior, such "black swan + whale" activities often trigger institutions and early players to reallocate their positions. Some funds may choose to diversify across multiple public chains and various asset forms to hedge against risks from a single chain or protocol; others may strengthen authorization cleaning, shorten the time funds stay in protocols, and increase the proportion of cold wallets to build a more defensive portfolio. These actions may not immediately reflect in prices but quietly change the funding structure of mainstream public chains and their DeFi protocols, determining who is more vulnerable and who has greater resilience when the next round of risk events erupts.
From the Lessons of SwapNet to the Next Security Paradigm
The fundamental issue exposed by the SwapNet incident lies in the systematic underestimation by protocol designers of "how permission management fails in extreme scenarios." On one hand, authorization paths are built on the assumption that upstream aggregators, routing, and dependent contracts "will always operate normally"; on the other hand, mechanisms for circuit breakers, authorization limits, revocation convenience, and risk alerts for extreme scenarios have long been viewed as burdens on the user experience and thus weakened. The result is that when a black swan truly lands, the authorization tool originally intended to "enhance efficiency" is directly exploited by attackers as an efficient withdrawal channel.
Looking to the future, the evolution of DeFi security clearly cannot remain at the level of "single protocols doing a few more audits" or "issuing a few more revocation alerts," but must evolve architecturally towards cross-chain intelligence sharing and collaborative risk control, and in a longer-term vision, introduce mechanisms facing new computational threats such as quantum resistance. Public chains and protocols need to build standardized risk interfaces so that signals from a single attack can be instantly transmitted across multiple chains, rather than each fighting their own battles and passively being besieged.
For ordinary users and protocol parties, the lessons from SwapNet are forcing everyone to reorder priorities: experience can no longer be the sole primary goal; "how authorizations are granted, how they are managed, and whether accountability can be pursued in case of issues" must be examined at the same level. Only when authorization mechanisms are viewed as part of financial infrastructure and designed and audited with worst-case scenarios in mind can DeFi claim to be genuinely ready for "mass adoption."
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