GAIN, the native utility token of Griffin AI, has suffered a dramatic 87% plunge following its market debut yesterday.
On-chain investigations revealed that the collapse was pushed by an attacker minting an extra 5 billion tokens and dumping them into the market, devastating early buyers and sparking safety issues.
Why Did GAIN Token’s Price Crash?
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For context, Griffin AI is a no-code platform for constructing, deploying, and scaling autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) agents. The mission powers greater than 15,000 reside brokers, enabling customers to create instruments for transaction execution, analysis, yield farming, and more.
The GAIN token powers the Griffin AI ecosystem by enabling entry to advanced agents, AI service credit, and operator collateral. It additionally helps creator instruments. Looking forward, staked GAIN will assist safe the node community and align incentives throughout contributors.
The token’s buying and selling began on Binance Alpha on September 24, accompanied by an exclusive airdrop for users holding at the very least 210 Alpha Points.
“Binance Alpha is the first platform to feature Griffin AI (GAIN), with Alpha trading opening on September 24, 2025, at 11:00 (UTC),” Binance posted.
Furthermore, GAIN additionally secured itemizing on different main centralized exchanges, together with KuCoin, HTX, MEXC, and Gate.io. However, its launch was adopted by an enormous value drop.
BeInCrypto Markets knowledge confirmed that GAIN’s worth has dipped by almost 87%, inflicting substantial investor losses. At the time of writing, the altcoin was buying and selling at $0.027.
Amid the worth drop, every day buying and selling quantity surged 126% to $96 million, with decentralized exchanges (DEXs) accounting for almost all of exercise.
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Inside the GAIN Mint-and-Dump Attack
But what prompted this sharp dip? On-chain analytics confirmed that uncommon exercise began a number of hours in the past. A pockets deal with 0xF3d17326130f90c1900bc0b69323c4c7e2d58Db2 minted 5 billion GAIN tokens, inflating the whole provide from the unique 1 billion.
“Tracing the source of funds upward, it’s a new address that received ETH from Tornado 13 hours ago, converted to BNB via Symbiosis cross-chain,” an on-chain analyst noted.
The attacker sold 147.5 million tokens on PancakeSwap, a number one multichain DEX, netting 2,955 BNB (roughly $3 million)
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According to EmberCN, the two,955 BNB have been transformed via deBridge into 720.81 ETH and distributed into the next six wallets:
- 0x1afc80d0E15cBCBfAAB9aD5520b4ab843Dfd648D
- 0xD4d83C2BC58B97d6458a7AE7d5b417c5422DC04C
- 0xB31BDDb3d1c2b45E5c5fE149Aa4c8304e9D1916C
- 0xa6654f227EcCF2f84476d2d51434081613F8Baba
- 0x107E83EBE677DDec253C440127F23310720177c2
- 0xf1755A2b7d0e418E9BAB4F81AD674fa39fA7F23D
The analyst added that the funds are beginning to circulate into the Tornado Cash for obfuscation. Meanwhile, GoPlus Security later confirmed the exploit stemmed from an unauthorized LayerZero peer setup, just like a previous assault on the Yala mission.
“The attacker (likely insider or via social engineering attack) added a fake LayerZero Peer on Ethereum, minted fake TTTTT tokens, and used it to bypass cross-chain checks — then minted 5 billion GAIN on BSC,” GoPlus Security posted.
The occasion has attracted substantial criticism from the neighborhood, with many customers reporting losses from the incident.
“We accept losses, but not fraud. In the market, if we lose money through fair competition, then a loss is a loss — we accept it. But what do you call this kind of malicious minting and dumping?” a consumer stated.
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Nonetheless, some agree that this could possibly be the work of an outsider and never the core staff itself.
“The operation doesn’t seem like something the project team would do; it’s too blatant and audacious… It looks like someone exploited a minting vulnerability, but we’ll wait for the official announcement,” one other analyst added.
Still, the crash has considerably eroded customers’ belief. In response, the Griffin AI staff issued an announcement on X confirming the exploit’s mechanics. Moreover, the staff has additionally taken down the licensed liquidity pool on BNB Chain to defend holders and requested exchanges to freeze GAIN exercise.
“Please DO NOT interact with any LPs that may be created by the attacker. They are not official and pose a risk. ETH GAIN remains safe,” the post learn.
The GAIN exploit has left buyers reeling and forged doubt on Griffin AI’s token launch. While the staff is working to mitigate the breach, it stays unsure whether or not these measures will restore confidence or enhance the token’s value motion.
