Injective, a layer-1 blockchain network, stopped producing new blocks for approximately four hours on August 31 while validators deployed an emergency patch in response to a reported $4.9 million exploit.
The network's consensus layer, native INJ token, and staked assets remained secure throughout the incident, according to the foundation. However, the emergency response disabled binary-options settlement on mainnet and temporarily jailed some validators who missed the required upgrade window. Major exchanges including Coinbase and Coins.ph temporarily restricted transfers during the disruption.
On September 1, Injective stated the blockchain was "upgraded, not halted" and described the attack as affecting a small number of ecosystem applications using binary-options markets. The emergency v1.20.3-safeharbor.1 release patched the core code by adding an insurance-fund denomination check and disabling binary-options settlement.
Researchers estimate approximately $4.9 million was bridged to Ethereum during the exploit, with roughly that amount remaining in an attacker-linked wallet that has not moved. The foundation has not disclosed total losses, which party absorbed any shortfall, or whether an ecosystem pool was restored internally or through external support.
On-chain analysis showed block 181027005 was produced at 16:09:59 UTC on August 31 before block production stopped for roughly four hours. The accelerated upgrade took longer than expected as validators and infrastructure providers moved to the emergency release.
Injective has not yet published a full technical postmortem. The foundation stated the attack vector had been contained and patched, with plans to add stronger invariants, real-time monitoring, and additional safeguards.
