ECHO Slides After Echo Protocol Admin Key Breach Enables $76.7M eBTC Mint

ECHO came under heavy selling after a security incident at Echo Protocol allowed an attacker to mint about $76.7 million in unbacked eBTC, shaking confidence across the ecosystem. According to on-chain analysis, the breach stemmed from a compromised admin-level private key that controlled minting permissions. With privileged access, the attacker bypassed normal restrictions and minted roughly 1,000 eBTC without posting collateral, creating synthetic supply not backed by Bitcoin reserves. The attacker then used the counterfeit eBTC across DeFi venues. Part of the position was deposited into lending markets such as Curvance to borrow wrapped Bitcoin (WBTC). Those borrowed assets were bridged across networks, swapped into ETH, and portions were routed through privacy tooling including Tornado Cash to make tracing more difficult. Investigators said around 955 eBTC remained in the attacker's control, accounting for most of the illicitly minted amount. Early conversions into liquid assets appeared limited. Markets reacted swiftly. ECHO fell more than 11% in a short period as traders priced in security risk and potential fallout from bad debt at lending platforms where unbacked eBTC had already been used as collateral. Liquidity tightened as participants cut exposure, adding to volatility. Echo Protocol said it paused cross-chain operations to limit further fund movement and close additional exploitation paths. The underlying Monad blockchain continued to operate normally; the incident was tied to Echo Protocol's access-control layer and the privileged minting authority. Security reviewers characterized the failure as a compromise of centralized administrative privileges rather than an error in token math or smart-contract logic. The post ECHO token plunges after $76M admin key exploit hits protocol appeared first on CoinJournal.