Cronos halted block production on August 30 after validators detected an exploit in the Tectonic decentralized lending protocol. Researchers estimate that about $75 million in assets were affected, though Tectonic has not confirmed the total loss. Approximately $6 million was moved to Ethereum before the halt, and the remainder remained on the Cronos network. Crypto.com said its centralized app and exchange continued to operate normally and that customer funds held on those platforms were safe. Tectonic and Cronos have not announced a restart schedule, recovery plan, or compensation framework. Independent researcher Weilin Li attributed the exploit to the treatment of TONIC, Tectonic’s governance token, as collateral. He said the attacker raised the market price of TONIC roughly 100‑fold within 20 minutes, used the inflated tokens as collateral, and borrowed other assets. Li described the activity as a Mango-market style pump-and-borrow attack, a characterization that remains unconfirmed because Tectonic has not published a technical post-mortem. A similar collateral-price attack previously drained Moonwell of about $8.7 million. Cronos must determine whether the affected addresses can move funds safely before resuming block production, and validators will assess any bad debt left in Tectonic’s markets. Tectonic has warned users to avoid interacting with the protocol until safety is confirmed.