Blockstream’s Liquid sidechain has been paused after roughly 4,000 BTC left the federation wallet that backs L-BTC in circulation. The network said the withdrawals were made through the SideSwap Peg-out Authorization Key, or PAK, but added that the key itself was not compromised. Two transfers moved the funds to a single Bitcoin address, which later posted an onchain message identifying the sender as white hats and asking to be contacted onchain. Blockstream responded with an onchain message directing the party to security@blockstream.com. Liquid then disabled bridge nodes, told exchanges to pause L-BTC deposits and withdrawals, and said assets issued on Liquid, including USDT and DePix, were unaffected. The incident has raised questions because Liquid’s peg wallet uses an 11-of-15 multisig and peg-outs are also restricted by a PAK list that, according to Liquid documentation, takes three days to update. Commentators including JAN3 CEO Samson Mow and Ledger CTO Charles Guillemet weighed in as additional onchain messages appeared, including a Signal contact request sent to the address holding the funds rather than from it.

Boltz, a non-custodial bridge used to route swaps across Bitcoin’s main chain, the Lightning Network, and Liquid, has suspended its swap service indefinitely after what it described as months of automated, AI-assisted attacks on its infrastructure. The service first went offline at 5:54 a.m. ET on Aug. 3 without explanation, and the team later said it could not responsibly bring swaps back online after identifying a sustained pattern of intrusions and pressure from what appeared to be multiple well-resourced groups. Boltz said several exploits were contained and that no user funds were ever at risk because its atomic swap model is non-custodial by design. The company said the financial losses were borne by Boltz itself. Its API remains online to help process cooperative refunds for in-flight swaps, while unilateral refunds can still work without Boltz infrastructure. The shutdown affects wallets and services that rely on Boltz for Lightning and Liquid swap functionality, including Bull Bitcoin, Aqua, and ZEUS. Executives at Bull Bitcoin and JAN3 said restoring swap-related functions is now a top priority, while ZEUS shut down its own instance of Boltz’s open-source stack. The incident also comes during a week of broader Bitcoin security concerns, including the Coldcard wallet exploit that has reportedly drained about $114 million in BTC since July 30.

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