Polkadot project Acala still offline

More than a week after an exploit on Acala, most of the functionality on the Polkadot parachain is still offline. In a tweet on Aug. 26, the project reported that most of the platform’s 22 services are still paused. This includes cross-chain transfers between Polkadot and Acala. An overview of the active functions can be accessed via a link.

In a previous one Statement on August 24, the Acala team said they still need to track up to 70 percent of transactions before they can restart inactive services. A separate report on what happened followed shortly thereafter.

Until then, important blockchain applications such as token transfers, bridging services, token swaps or certain staking features will remain suspended. At least ordinary DOT and ACA staking is still possible without restrictions.

Acala exploit due to protocol error

A bug in one of the platform’s liquidity pools allowed attackers to mistakenly create $1.28 billion of the stablecoin aUSD. BTC–ECHO reported. As a result, stablecoin aUSD plunged from its US dollar peg to fractional cents. Acala acted quickly and paused all activity on the log to prevent large amounts of money from draining out.

Thanks to the decommissioning, a total of 3 billion aUSD tokens have been secured and destroyed to date, which temporarily fixed the price of the stablecoin at the USD 1 mark. Since then, however, the service has been largely unusable. Only three of Acala’s features are currently online. The stablecoin is also subject to significant fluctuations again, presumably because tokens are still being destroyed in the background.

Acala was considered by many polkadot advocates as a flagship project of the blockchain. The first parachain, essentially a blockchain on top of the main Polkadots blockchain, launched as the ecosystem’s DeFi flagship. However, the fact that many applications are still not running after the exploit casts a shadow over Acala’s success.