Garden Finance app goes offline after $450,000 of USDT is stolen across four networks

Decentralized finance protocol Garden Finance has taken its application offline. The move comes after security firm Blockaid flagged an exploit that drained roughly $450,000 in USDT from the platform’s Hashed Time-Locked Contract (HTLC) infrastructure.

Blockaid said the attacker hit HTLC contracts deployed across four blockchain networks: Ethereum, Base, Arbitrum, and BNB Smart Chain. The stolen funds are in USDT, the largest stablecoin by market capitalization.

Garden Finance, a protocol that enables cross-chain swaps and liquidity provision, has not yet released a detailed post-mortem. The decision to disable the app appears aimed at preventing additional losses while the team investigates the root cause.

HTLCs are smart contracts used to facilitate trustless, time-bound transactions across different blockchains. They are a common building block in atomic swaps and cross-chain bridges. The exploit suggests a flaw in how Garden Finance’s implementation handled these contracts on multiple chains simultaneously.

At $450,000, the incident is moderate in size compared to many DeFi hacks this year. Still, it serves as a reminder of the persistent security risks in multi-chain protocols. The fact that the same contract type was exploited on four separate networks indicates a systemic vulnerability rather than a chain-specific bug.

For users, the key questions are whether Garden Finance will restore funds and when the protocol will reopen. No official timeline has been given. Blockaid’s report is now public, and the security community will likely scrutinize the exploit’s mechanics.

Traders should watch for an official statement from Garden Finance detailing the investigation’s findings and any plans for restitution. The incident also underscores the importance of due diligence when interacting with DeFi protocols that operate across multiple chains.