The Cronos Network, associated with Crypto.com, has halted its blockchain operations after discovering an exploit in the Tectonic lending protocol.

We identified an exploit in Tectonic.

The Cronos Network has been halted and we'll provide updates here

— Cronos Network (@CronosNetwork) August 30, 2026

The team has initiated an investigation and advised users against interacting with the protocol until further notice.

On-chain researcher Weilin Li linked the attack to price manipulation involving the low-liquidity token TONIC. He speculated that the attacker made an inflated collateral deposit and borrowed other assets.

It seems @TectonicFi has been exploited for around $66M!

The root cause is simple: TONIC, its own governance token has a 20% collateral factor, with very thin liquidity. The attacker performed a Mango-market style pump-and-borrow price manipulation attack. TONIC's price surged… pic.twitter.com/cZ2QQNC9C6

— Weilin (William) Li (@hklst4r) August 30, 2026

With a collateral factor of 20% and extremely low liquidity, the attacker executed a "pump and borrow" scheme. Consequently, the token's price skyrocketed 100-fold within 20 minutes, allowing for a substantial loan increase.

Source: CoinGecko.

According to preliminary estimates from an analyst, the protocol suffered losses of approximately $75 million.

Tectonic has yet to confirm the extent of the affected funds or the cause of the incident.

Chris Marszalek, CEO of Crypto.com, stated that the app and exchange were not impacted. He mentioned that the security team of the trading platform is assisting Cronos with the investigation.

There has been a security breach on a Cronos lending protocol Tectonic. Cronos team is investigating, with assistance from https://t.co/JNeHyErmqH security team. https://t.co/JNeHyErmqH app and exchange were not affected and are operating as usual. All funds are safe.

I will…

— Kris (@kris) August 30, 2026

No timeline for the resumption of network operations has been provided by blockchain representatives.

It's worth noting that on August 29, the team behind the Fogo L1 blockchain halted its mainnet and began updates after an unknown entity acquired 400 million FOGO tokens, accounting for over 10% of the current circulating supply.