Qubic Halts Mainnet After Thief Drains 1,404 Wallets of $1.3M in QU

Qubic, a decentralized AI computing network built around its native QU token, suspended its mainnet on October 18, 2026, after an attacker emptied 1,404 user wallets, Cryptobriefing reported. The stolen amount came to about 2.94 trillion QU, roughly $1.3 million at the time of the theft.

According to Cryptobriefing, the developers said the breach did not stem from a flaw in the network’s code. It traced instead to weak, predictable wallet seeds generated on legacy Apple devices, Safari browsers and early iOS applications. News.bitcoin reported that the vulnerable seeds were 55 characters long and were produced with insufficient randomness, letting the attacker rebuild a smaller set of likely seeds rather than guess a vast number of combinations.

Key facts

• The transfers ran from 23:42 UTC on October 17 to 01:26 UTC on October 18, and validators halted the chain at tick 85,371,949.
• About 87.1% of the drained QU stayed on the Qubic network, locked in place by the suspension; the other 12.9% reached MEXC, which froze the receiving account within an hour, per Cryptobriefing.
• Bitget suspended all QUBIC deposits and withdrawals while the situation developed.
• Qubic shipped client version 4.26.4 to close the seed-generation weakness and said it secured other exposed funds before they could be taken.
• News.bitcoin reported that Qubic’s native currency was down more than 10% as of 10 a.m. Eastern time on Sunday.

A short raid and a hard stop

The attacker needed about 1 hour and 44 minutes to clear out more than a thousand wallets. A tick is Qubic’s measure of network progress and is roughly comparable to a block on other chains, so halting at tick 85,371,949 froze the ledger before the stolen tokens could be moved off the network.

That left the thief with most of the haul stranded. Qubic’s staking feature, QEARN, was not affected by the incident, according to both reports.

Victims wait on the Computor vote

Whether affected users are made whole is now a question for Qubic’s Computor cluster, the operators who run the network and vote on its direction. Until that vote happens, victims have been told to file police reports, which points to a formal paper trail mattering in any compensation process. News.bitcoin described the decision as resting with Qubic’s Computor quorum.

This was the second 2026 incident touching Qubic through something outside its core, after the Vottun Bridge was exploited in August 2026, exposing risks tied to the network’s outer components. Qubic markets itself on a no-premine, fee-less design for running AI workloads. News.bitcoin also noted that the project was founded by Sergey Ivancheglo, known as “Come-from-Beyond,” and drew controversy in 2025 after claiming majority control of Monero’s mining hashrate.

Why it matters

The damage shows how a chain can be attacked without its consensus code being broken at all: any network that leans on third-party wallet software inherits that software’s weaknesses. Users who generated seeds on older Apple hardware, Safari or early iOS wallet apps face the same exposure the drained accounts did.

For traders, the practical snag is liquidity. Bitget’s pause limits how freely QU can move between the network and one of its trading venues, and MEXC’s handling of the frozen account will signal how far exchanges will go to return stolen funds.

What to watch

Three developments will shape what comes next: the Computor cluster’s compensation vote, the timing of a mainnet restart on the patched 4.26.4 client, and when Bitget restores QUBIC deposits and withdrawals.

This article is not financial advice. Crypto markets are volatile, and token prices can move sharply in either direction.

Disclaimer: This article is for information only and is not investment, financial or trading advice. Cryptocurrency prices are highly volatile. Always do your own research.

Sources: Crypto Briefing, News.bitcoin