Bridge Hacks Push $7B to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Network

Bridge hacks that cost roughly $650 million this year coincided with more than $7 billion of token value migrating to Chainlink’s Cross-Chain Interoperability Protocol (CCIP) in the second quarter, Chainlink reported. CCIP processed $4.9 billion in quarterly volume, up 353% year over year, and the network reported $110 billion in total value secured. CCIP launched on mainnet in July 2023.

Several large projects shifted assets to CCIP after recent bridge breaches. Mantle moved more than $2.5 billion of MNT. Lombard Finance transferred over $1 billion in Bitcoin assets. Solv migrated more than $700 million in tokenized Bitcoin. KelpDAO moved about $1.5 billion of rsETH following a prior bridge provider exploit that cost $292 million. Exchanges and token issuers also adopted CCIP: Kraken moved over $330 million of wrapped Bitcoin, Re redistributed roughly $475 million of reUSD, and Virtuals deployed more than $700 million of VIRTUAL across chains.

Cross-chain bridges allow tokens and data to move between separate blockchains without routing through centralized exchanges. Those systems rely on complex verification mechanisms and often hold large asset pools, features that have made bridges a frequent target. Cross-chain bridge and infrastructure losses have exceeded $650 million this year, including incidents involving the Verus Ethereum Bridge and a Polkadot-based Hyperbridge.

Institutional use of Chainlink technology expanded during the quarter. The Depository Trust & Clearing Corp. plans to use Chainlink’s Runtime Environment and data standard for its Collateral AppChain to support near-real-time collateral management, with a go-live expected in the fourth quarter. Fidelity International launched a tokenized fund that uses Chainlink for onchain net-asset-value data. State Street Investment Management and Galaxy used Chainlink for a tokenized liquidity fund called SWEEP. Project Pangea, involving more than 50 banks from Europe and South Korea representing over $10 trillion in assets under management, is exploring T+0 foreign-exchange settlement using regulated stablecoins, ISO 20022 messaging and existing SWIFT infrastructure.

Chainlink reported mechanisms designed to convert usage into LINK accumulation. The Chainlink Reserve added more than 1.44 million LINK in the second quarter, bringing total reserve holdings above 4.5 million LINK; the reserve buys LINK using revenue from enterprise integrations and onchain services. The Smart Value Recapture system reclaimed more than $23 million from DeFi liquidations, with about $15 million returned to participating protocols and roughly $8 million allocated to the Chainlink network. The recapture tool has processed over $880 million in liquidations.

Onchain data show LINK balances on known exchanges declined by more than 15.7 million tokens over the past month, with about 1.04 million LINK leaving exchanges on July 19 alone. LINK’s price rose about 12% during the month to roughly $8.34, remaining about 31% below its level at the start of the year.

Repeated bridge losses and the migrations to CCIP took place as projects reviewed the security of cross-chain transfer infrastructure. Chainlink’s figures for the quarter reflect the set of migrations and institutional integrations recorded during Q2.