Qubic Blockchain Halts Operations After $1.4M Wallet Seed Exploit

In a recent announcement on X, Qubic revealed the network was stopped at tick 85,371,949 and remains paused at the time of reporting. The vulnerability impacted wallet seed phrases created via any browser on iPhone or iPad, Safari on Mac devices until October 18, 2026, and the Qubic iOS app up to July 2025. This exploitation resulted in the theft of 2.94 trillion Qubit (QU) tokens.

According to Qubic, 87.1% of the stolen assets never left the blockchain and remain frozen on the network. The remaining 12.9% was transferred to the MEXC exchange, whose team promptly froze the recipient account within about an hour of receiving the funds.

This incident marks the latest in a series of attacks related to weakly generated wallet seeds. Earlier in July, Coldcard disclosed that attackers had stolen funds from wallets compromised by a firmware bug weakening their seed phrases. Similar vulnerabilities had previously affected the Trust Wallet browser extension and the Libbitcoin Explorer tool in 2023.

Qubic has addressed the seed phrase generation vulnerability in the newest version of its web wallet. Specifically, they replaced the JavaScript Math.random() function, which is unsuitable for cryptographic purposes, with the cryptographically secure crypto.getRandomValues() method when creating wallet seeds, as detailed in a GitHub commit for version 4.26.4.

The Qubic core development team is currently identifying affected wallets and preparing recovery options for a vote by the network's governing group, the Computors. This group will decide the fate of the frozen assets. The team also promised to release a comprehensive technical report once a recovery plan is finalized. No date has been set for when the network restart will occur.

Qubic did not provide immediate comments when approached for statements by Cointelegraph.

Qubic operates as a layer-1 blockchain that enables transactions and smart contracts without charging fees. It uses a consensus mechanism called Useful Proof of Work (UPoW), which redirects mining energy toward artificial intelligence training. At the time of writing, Qubic's token had a market capitalization of roughly $62.6 million, according to CoinGecko.

According to AMLBot’s 2026 investigations report, which analyzed 250 crypto crime cases opened since the year's start, hacks and exploits accounted for 19% of such crimes but represented 40% of all reported financial losses during the third quarter.

Qubic's recent incident exemplifies the critical importance of employing robust cryptographic methods in wallet seed generation to prevent large-scale thefts and maintain blockchain integrity.

Ensuring secure wallet seed generation is vital to protect user assets, as weaknesses in this process can lead to significant financial losses and network disruptions in the blockchain ecosystem.