Fraudsters steal $6 million from Tectonic crypto platform after inflating token price

Attackers manipulated the price of Tectonic’s thinly traded Tonic token, inflating its value ~100x within 20 minutes and using the inflated tokens as collateral to borrow assets; roughly $6 million was stolen and an additional ~$68–69 million was prevented from leaving after Cronos halted and rolled back activity. Cronos and Crypto.com assisted in the investigation, Tectonic plans a phased reopening, and security firms note this type of market-manipulation collateral exploit is increasingly common in DeFi.