Sandbox halts Base and BNB bridging after $49B token exploit

Sandbox halted Base and BNB Smart Chain bridging after an attacker minted unbacked SAND tokens. The attacker bridged the tokens across more than 400 transactions. The tokens had a face value of roughly $49 billion based on SAND's market price. The figure does not represent money stolen or liquidity available for sales. SAND's market capitalization was roughly $136 million. Blockaid flagged the exploit during the attack. Blockaid said the attacker hijacked LayerZero delegate permissions through an "approveAndCall" function. The company did not define the exploit's impact or reconcile the $49 billion figure. The company said the exploit represented fewer than 300,000 SAND when measured against the token supply. Bithumb and Upbit suspended SAND deposits and withdrawals.