The Sandbox to Repay 700,000 Stolen SAND 1:1 After Bridge Exploit

The Sandbox said it will reimburse users on a 1:1 basis following a bridge exploit that affected SAND bridged to Base and BNB Smart Chain. The compensation applies to holders of bridged SAND on those networks prior to the exploit and will be paid in Ethereum-based SAND from the project's treasury, with no new token issuance. The incident drained about 14.744 million SAND from the Ethereum treasury, valued at roughly $700,000. The Sandbox expects to open the claims process within two weeks, with a two-week window to submit claims. It added that more than 72% of eligible balances held on centralized exchanges will be distributed directly to impacted users. The Sandbox attributed the attack to a configuration flaw in the SAND contracts on Base and BNB Chain, which allowed the attacker to become the sole validator for bridge messages and mint unbacked tokens. It said more than 339 trillion unbacked SAND were minted on the two networks, but those tokens have been isolated and cannot be bridged or exchanged. SAND on Ethereum and Polygon was not affected, and the compromised bridge contracts will be permanently disabled.