Alex Smirnov, the founder of deBridge, has asked Flow blockchain validators to stop processing transactions until the Flow Foundation presents a concrete plan to address customer concerns about the proposed chain rollback.
The suggestion stems from a $3.9 million hack on December 27, when an attacker exploited a weakness in Flow’s execution layer to generate fake tokens and steal funds across several cross-chain bridges. As one of Flow’s leading bridge providers, deBridge highlighted hazards, such as customers having twice as much money if they bridged assets out during the rollback period.
Network Stops at Important Block
According to Flowscan data, the blockchain has been stuck at block height 137,385,824 since 11:24 pm UTC on Saturday. This means that validators can’t instantly follow Smirnov’s instructions.
At that time, the Flow Foundation said a restart would occur in 4 to 6 hours, but the network is still stuck while work is underway to restore it. According to CoinGecko data, the FLOW token price has dropped 42% since the attack due to the exploit and rollback.
Critics Slam Quick Rollback
Chain rollbacks get a lot of bad press because they undo completed transactions, which makes people less trusting of decentralization and makes it harder to know how much money users have. Smirnov criticized the “rushed decision,” saying that Flow didn’t inform partners, such as bridges and exchanges, in advance.
He also warned that it could cause more damage than the exploit itself: “A rollback introduces systemic issues that affect bridges, custodians, users, and counterparties who acted honestly during the affected window.”He talked a lot about the risks exchanges face when handling FLOW deposits and withdrawals during the window.
Gabriel Shapiro, the chief counsel for Delphi Labs, said the same thing, accusing Flow of “creating unbacked assets to cover their asses and expecting bridges and issuers to take the hit or do their own separate mitigations.” Dapper Labs, the company that made Flow, said that the attack didn’t affect any customer balances or assets, even its own treasury.
Flow’s Past and Problems
Dapper Labs launched Flow in 2020, and investors, including Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, invested $725 million to expand its ecosystem.
But the network hasn’t done well, with only $85.5 million in total value locked and FLOW’s market valuation dropping below $167.3 million, putting it outside the top 300 tokens. The event shows that scaling blockchain security remains hard, even as people have high hopes.
