Berachain Foundation has carried out an emergency hard fork aimed at fixing critical security issues linked to the recent Balancer V2 exploit, temporarily halting the blockchain as validators coordinated to prevent further risk.
The team released a new hard-fork client binary, which includes patches for vulnerabilities affecting BEX, Berachain’s native decentralized exchange. According to the statement, validators agreed to pause block production to stop potential follow-up exploitation while the fix was being deployed.
Validators Upgrading, Network Still Offline
A portion of validators has already updated to the latest version of the client, but the network remains offline.
The foundation emphasized that the chain will not restart until all essential infrastructure partners—particularly those maintaining RPC endpoints—complete their updates:
“Before resuming the network and restarting block production, we need to ensure that key infrastructure partners have updated their RPCs. At this stage, they are the main blocker to restoring network activity.”
Attacker Identifies as White Hat, Agrees to Return Funds
The individual currently holding the stolen funds—identified as an MEV bot operator active on Berachain—has reportedly contacted the team and confirmed their intention to return all assets.
The operator referred to themselves as a white hat and committed to signing the necessary transactions once the chain is live again.
Security Report and Ecosystem Review Coming After Restart
Once the network resumes operations, Berachain plans to publish a detailed breakdown of newly implemented security measures for BEX, alongside a broader review of other core applications within the ecosystem.
The foundation also intends to share an updated project roadmap and outline potential consequences stemming from the recent incident.
Earlier this year, in February 2025, Berachain surpassed both Base and Arbitrum in total value locked (TVL), reaching $3.24 billion at the time—significantly above the ~$413 million TVL reported as of today.
