Holograph 2024 unauthorized HLG mint
A malicious actor exploited the Holograph Operator contract and minted one billion additional HLG tokens on Mantle. The team patched the initial exploit, temporarily locked the protocol, coordinated account freezes, and announced a staged burn plan and external investigation.
Incident facts
- Incident title
- Holograph 2024 unauthorized HLG mint
- Bridge
- Holograph Protocol
- Incident date
- 2024-06-13
- Incident type
- Unauthorized Token Mint
- Major incident
- Yes
- Affected chains
- Mantle, Ethereum, Unknown
- Affected assets
- HLG
- Attack category
- Privileged Operator Contract Access
- Reported loss
- 1 billion HLG unauthorized mint; realized loss not fixed
- Recovery
- Partial Freeze And Burn Plan
- Reimbursement
- Not Announced
- Restart
- Protocol Locked Then Partial Reopen
- Current outcome
- Historical Protocol Inactive
- Resolution
- Unresolved
- Last reviewed
- 2026-06-16
- Last verified
- 2026-06-16
Timeline events
Holograph Operator contract exploited2024-06-13
A malicious actor used the Holograph Operator contract to mint one billion additional HLG. Holograph said it patched the initial exploit and began coordinating with exchanges and law enforcement.
Protocol locked and part of unauthorized supply frozen2024-06-15
Incident updates reported that the protocol was temporarily locked and that at least part of the unauthorized HLG supply was frozen through exchange coordination.
Holograph announced staged HLG burn plan2024-06-19
Holograph announced a plan to remove one billion HLG through frozen exchange balances, treasury tokens, and open-market purchases; the first tranche burned approximately 53 million HLG.
Investigation attributed incident to former contractor2024-07-02
Reporting on Holograph's investigation with Halborn said a former contractor had retained or created privileged access used to mint the unauthorized supply.
Evidence records
- Holograph statement on the Holograph Operator exploitHolograph · Tier 1 · 2024-06-13
- HLG Down Over 60% as Exploiter Mints 1 Billion New TokensCoinDesk · Tier 2 · 2024-06-13
- Holograph Announces HLG Burn Plan and Halborn PartnershipHolograph via Chainwire · Tier 1 · 2024-06-19
- Holograph protocol sabotaged by disgruntled contractorCointelegraph · Tier 2 · 2024-07-03
Known unknowns
- The final Halborn report URL was not located in stable official documentation.
- The relationship between the historical omnichain protocol and the current same-domain trading terminal is not established as a canonical successor.