Three DeFi Bridges Lose $35M in Coordinated Attacks on July 22-23

In a brutal 24-hour span, three decentralized finance protocols lost over $35 million in coordinated exploits targeting bridges and cross-chain systems. Security firms Blockaid and PeckShield detected the attacks, tracked by Lookonchain. The largest loss hit AFX Trade on Arbitrum, where $24.15 million in USDC was drained after an attacker compromised validator signing keys. Offchain Labs co-founder Steven Goldfeder confirmed Arbitrum's native bridge was not affected. The Verus-Ethereum bridge lost $7.54 million in a second exploit in two months, using the same vulnerability as a May attack that cost $11.5 million. B² Network's staking contract on BNB Chain was compromised for $3.86 million in B2 tokens; the team suspended staking and offered the attacker legal immunity for a partial return. None of the exploits involved cryptographic flaws; all exploited logic errors or compromised keys. July's total hack losses exceeded June's. The incidents underscore persistent weaknesses in bridge security, where large value pools are protected by few validators or keys. As of publication, no complete postmortems or recoveries were confirmed.