Maya Protocol pauses after a $1.7M cross-chain exploit drains BTC and CACAO

Maya Protocol suffered an estimated $1.7 million security breach, according to multiple reports on Aug. 19, 2026. Crypto.news said the cross-chain network halted operations after an attacker exploited six linked vulnerabilities, while Coindesk reported the exploit involved crediting a trading pool with nearly 50 million tokens that were never properly funded, enabling the theft of real assets ^{[1] [2]}.

Reporting on the breach details, Blockonomi said the attacker used a single transaction containing 23 messages to extract 48.87 million CACAO tokens, and that stolen funds included about 20 bitcoin valued around $1.4 million plus roughly $300,000 in other cryptocurrencies from the protocol’s vault systems. Crypto.news also described the theft as involving bitcoin and other crypto assets, and said the network pause followed the incident ^{[3] [1]}.

Coinrise reported that MAYAChain—described as a decentralized cross-chain liquidity network and a sister protocol to THORChain—paused operations after the roughly $1.7 million exploit, noting that the pause was reported shortly after the breach by other outlets. Coindesk further linked the incident to market impact, reporting the pool value dropped by about $11 million following the exploit ^{[4] [2]}.

The breach prompted Maya Protocol (and related network operations) to pause, with reported losses centered on bitcoin and other crypto assets obtained through a multi-vulnerability exploit ^{[1] [2]}.