Injective Halts for 4 Hours After $4.9M Exploit
Injective (INJ)
Editor:
Eugene Serbin
cvj.ai reports that Injective halted block production for nearly four hours on August 31 to contain a $4.9 million exploit. The disruption began after block 181027005 at 16:09:59 UTC, with infrastructure provider QuickNode confirming stalled block heights. On-chain researcher Earthling Paddy noted that one block took approximately 37 minutes to produce, challenging the foundation’s claim that the chain was merely upgraded rather than halted.
The foundation deployed emergency release v1.20.3-safeharbor.1 to patch core code, though some validators were temporarily jailed for missing the upgrade window. While the foundation stated consensus and staked assets were safe, Paddy argued the attack targeted native exchange and insurance modules. The patch disabled binary-options settlement and added an insurance-fund denomination check to address the vulnerability.
Researchers estimate $4.9 million was bridged to Ethereum, with funds remaining in an attacker-linked wallet. Injective CEO Eric Chen stated, “Injective users aren’t affected and we’ve been helping the team on recovery.”
How the market reacted
Whalio's own Binance spot order flow for INJ, measured when this story was written up on 2 September 2026. Not the outlet's figures.
INJ trades at $4.81, with a 24-hour buy ratio of 36.8%, indicating that selling pressure outweighs buying over the full day. The 1-hour buy ratio of 46.9% shows a slight recovery in buying interest compared to the 4-hour ratio of 35.5%. Volume Delta reflects this imbalance, showing a net outflow of $7,422 in the last hour and $335,741 over four hours. Cumulative Volume Delta (CVD) for the 24-hour period closes at -$785,318, confirming sustained net selling. Spot volume reached $7,450,854 with 97,991 trades, while net buying occurred in only 8 of the 24 hours.
The latest daily buy ratio of 44.2% sits at the 8th percentile of the last 281 days, against a median of 49.7% - among the weakest buying days it has had.
Was that an ordinary day?
The same Binance spot measurements for INJ, averaged over the days leading up to the story.
Over the preceding week, the 7-day average buy ratio was 48.6%, making the current 24-hour ratio of 36.8% an 11.8-point decline. This suggests selling pressure is stronger today than the weekly norm. Volume remains slightly elevated at 1.03x the average, with total Volume Delta at -$3,123,979 over eight days. The price has dropped 13.7% over the eight-day period. This day is unusual due to the sharp drop in buying ratio compared to the weekly average.