Two Ethereum bridges lose $31.7M within hours as third protocol halts staking

AFX and the Verus-Ethereum bridge suffered about $31.69 million in combined losses within hours of each other, while B² Network separately suspended token staking after unauthorized access to a contract upgrade authority.Blockaid said it detected the AFX exploit at about 21:30 UTC on July 22. An Arbitrum transaction recorded 24.15 million USDC leaving the bridge operated by AFX, a decentralized trading protocol on Arbitrum.AFX suspended its USDC custody bridge and said the incident was isolated from its trading infrastructure, mainnet, and the Arbitrum network. The affected component was a third-party bridge, not Arbitrum's native bridge.In preliminary findings published July 24, AFX attributed the incident to coordinated social engineering and infrastructure compromise. The protocol said access appeared to begin in a development environment before escalating into internal build infrastructure and validator systems.AFX said it was verifying balances, pursuing fund recovery and preparing remediation. As of July 24, it had not announced a completed return of funds or a finalized compensation plan.Hours after the AFX incident, an Ethereum transaction showed the Verus bridge releasing ...