Cronos chain hit by price manipulation attack, approximately $75 million involved On August 30, the lending protocol Tectonic on the Cronos chain suffered a price manipulation attack. The entire process took only about 20 minutes. The attacker first drove the price of the governance token TONIC up nearly 100x in a short period, then used these "inflated" TONIC tokens as collateral to borrow other assets. Here’s where the real danger lies ⚠️ Abnormal prices ≠ Real value Lending protocols often rely on oracles or price data to determine the value of collateral. Once the price source is manipulated, tokens with limited actual value can instantly become "high-value collateral," allowing attackers to extract large amounts of real assets. Cronos subsequently suspended block production across the entire chain. Before the chain was halted, the attacker managed to bridge out approximately $6 million to Ethereum, while the remaining $68 million remains in related addresses. The more visible impact: Tectonic's TVL dropped from $121.7 million to about $3 million It was almost completely wiped out in a short time. Additionally, the Crypto CEO has confirmed that the Crypto App and exchange operations were not affected by this incident. For retail investors, the most alarming takeaway from this event isn’t just "a token crashing," but: 1️⃣ Behind high DeFi yields, there are also risks of oracle and price manipulation 2️⃣ When small-cap tokens are used as collateral, the risks are especially worth noting 3️⃣ Seeing high TVL or high APY doesn’t necessarily mean a protocol is safe 4️⃣ When on-chain assets experience abnormal surges, don’t mistake short-term spikes for real market trends 5️⃣ Before using lending protocols, it’s best to understand the collateral, liquidation mechanisms, and the source of price oracles These types of attacks are often not as simple as "stealing money from wallets." Instead, they exploit vulnerabilities in protocol design to turn fake prices into real, borrowable assets. In reality, the question we should always focus on isn’t just: "How much can I earn?" We should first ask: "If prices are manipulated, is my capital safe?" #Cryptocurrency #DeFi #Cronos