# Bittensor Network in 'Safe Mode' Following Exploit

*Author: David Christopher*
*Published: Jul 3, 2024*
*Source: https://www.bankless.com/bittensor-network-in-safe-mode-following-exploit*

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The Bittensor network, a top decentralized AI project, is currently in safe mode after developers halted the blockchain following a security exploit that targeted several wallets.

## What’s the scoop?
- **Exploit Details:** Onchain analyst ZachXBT reported [potential thefts](https://www.theblock.co/post/303235/bittensor-halts-network-after-reported-security-attack-on-wallets-zachxbt) linked to leaked private keys.
- **Community Response: **A Discord admin announced that transactions have been paused to prevent further unauthorized access.
- **Financial Impact:** ~$8M worth of TAO was stolen, with the token slipping 15% on the news.

## Bankless Take:
Bittensor now joins the rank of chains like Base, Blast, Arbitrum, Polygon, and Solana with halted activity. A decentralized network for specialized machine learning, Bittensor is composed of over 30 purpose-built subnets, each tailored to specific data or tasks, such as image generation [(SN19)](https://bittensorwiki.com/post/sn19-vision), transcription [(SN11)](https://bittensorwiki.com/post/sn11-transcription-subnet), advertising [(SN16)](https://bittensorwiki.com/post/sn16-bitads), and signals for trading [(SN8)](https://bittensorwiki.com/post/sn8-time-series-prediction). After climbing from [$50 last October to $730 in March](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/bittensor/), TAO’s slipped back down to $238. Despite this, [over 80% of the TAO](https://x.taostats.io/staking) in circulation remains staked by the [network's ~82K active wallets](https://x.taostats.io/#accountStats).

> Bittensor wallets got hacked and $8M worth of [$TAO](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24TAO&src=ctag&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) got drained.All [$TAO](https://twitter.com/search?q=%24TAO&src=ctag&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw) transactions on Bittensor have been halted.Price nuked 15% of off this news.Validators have confirmed that their systems remain secure, and the Bittensor team is actively working to resolve the issue. [pic.twitter.com/UhLtiZSxkB](https://t.co/UhLtiZSxkB)— Kingpin Crypto (@Kingpincrypto12) [July 3, 2024](https://twitter.com/Kingpincrypto12/status/1808392814884983095?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw)
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