White hat hackers targeted Blocksteam's Liquid sidechain, taking over 4,000 bitcoins. They want to keep some of the bitcoins as a reward. Blockstream isn't happy.
A self-described white-hat party returned 3,400 BTC to Liquid Network’s federation wallet on Monday after Blockstream said bridge nodes were patched. About 598.5 BTC, near $47 million, remains at the holder address.
Liquid Network said purported white-hat hackers withdrew about 4,000 bitcoin from the federation wallet that backs L-BTC. Bridge nodes are disabled and the sidechain is paused.
Bitcoin remains pseudonymous by design, but real-world threats from exchanges and data leaks demand stronger protections. Experts highlight Sparrow Wallet, Bisq, and Boltz as key 2026 solutions for on-chain and off-chain privacy.
Paystand, the Bitcoin-powered B2B payments network processing over $20B in volume, today launched USDb, a 1:1 USD-backed stablecoin native to Blockstream’s Liquid and Rootstock layers for commercial-scale accounts receivable, payable, payroll, and treasury.
Second, the Bitcoin development lab founded by ex-Blockstream executives including CEO Steven Roose and CTO Erik De Smedt, has unveiled Bark — its custom Ark protocol implementation promising self-custodial payments that are faster and cheaper than Lightning channels.
The Boltz BTCPay Plugin enables merchants using BTCPay Server to accept Lightning payments non-custodially and transfer these funds to the Liquid sidechain.
The debate around the next change to Bitcoin is focused almost entirely on covenants. Having already implemented numerous covenants, Liquid presents a great learning opportunity in that discussion.