CoinEx News: From August 20 to August 31, repeated security incidents pushed chain halts into crypto’s emergency playbook, suspending block production and on-chain transfers across several layer-1 networks. Cronos stopped after an attacker manipulated Tectonic’s thinly traded TONIC token and borrowed an estimated $75 million against inflated collateral; only roughly $6 million reached Ethereum before validators intervened. Cronos later restored the chain to its pre-exploit state. Fogo paused after 400 million FOGO, more than 10% of circulating supply, reached an attacker. Ontology separately suspended blocks for a security review after detecting a potential concern and said it had found no confirmed incident or asset loss. Injective also temporarily stopped producing blocks amid unconfirmed exploit claims.

The shutdowns limited further fund movements but exposed a governance trade-off. A chain halt suspends deposits, withdrawals, bridges and time-sensitive contracts for every user, not just the attacker. Cronos’s rollback also changed finalized transaction history, while Fogo planned restrictions on affected addresses. Earlier in August, MANTRA paused after a shared Cosmos EVM flaw was exploited, and BounceBit ultimately abandoned its standalone chain for BNB Chain after its own incident.