According to reports, the Bittensor (TAO) blockchain was paused due to the depletion of funds from several wallets. The final block was processed 14 hours ago, and the network is now in safe mode, as stated by the Opentensor Foundation.
TAO Network Paused for 14 Hours Due to Massive Wallet Thefts
At 9:47 p.m. EDT on Tuesday, onchain investigator Zachxbt discovered that a Bittensor wallet containing 32,000 TAO, valued at $8 million at the time, had been drained. This incident followed another wallet depletion, which saw $11.2 million stolen on June 1, 2024. The Opentensor Foundation, the team behind the Bittensor artificial intelligence-centric crypto project, confirmed that the blockchain has been placed in “safe mode.”
“The chain is now in safe mode for at least the next 24 hours,” Opentensor wrote on Discord. “This means that all transactions including transfers are now paused while we investigate the root cause of this attack in the meanwhile.”
The TAO blockchain explorer taostats.io reveals that as of 9:50 a.m. EDT, the TAO chain has been paused for 14 hours. Bittensor ranks as the fourth largest AI-focused blockchain by market capitalization, valued at $1.63 billion. However, the recent developments have led to a roughly 16% decline in TAO’s value by 9:50 a.m. on Wednesday. Currently, TAO is nearly 69% below its peak price of $757 per unit, achieved on March 7, 2024.
“As we are prioritizing this issue for the rest of this week, we will not be releasing any regular software updates for either Bittensor software or for any chain updates on either mainnet or testnet until we have brought the chain fully back online,” Opentensor’s message concludes.
