Sweat Economy has restored all external account balances after a rapid exploit on NEAR Protocol drained about 13.71 billion $SWEAT tokens. The attack hit the foundation’s top 100 holder accounts on April 29, siphoning roughly $3.5 million in under 30 seconds.
We are pleased to confirm that ALL external account balances have been fully restored and operations are back to normal.
We deeply appreciate the support and advice from the community that helped us to resolve this quickly.
Special thanks goes to @MEXC for prompt freezing of… pic.twitter.com/9hvhIpmB5A
— SWEAT💧 (@SweatEconomy) April 29, 2026
Rapid ecosystem coordination prevents permanent losses.
Within minutes, the technical team paused the token contract, blocking the attacker from moving stolen funds. Centralized partners acted quickly as MEXC froze the attacker’s deposit account, and Rhea Finance halted trading pairs to limit further losses.
By evening, Sweat Economy had patched the contract and used its built-in refund system to return all user funds, reporting no losses. Operations are back to normal, but smart contracts remain closed for a full audit. The team is conducting a forensic analysis and has filed a report with law enforcement to track the attacker and prevent future breaches.
Security fatigue grows as April exploit volumes soar
April 2026 marks crypto’s worst hack month since February 2025, with 25 exploits draining $629M, one every 27 hours. ZetaChain lost $334K to an ignored bug bounty flaw in GatewayEVM, sparking backlash. Syndicate’s Commons bridge suffered a $330K SYND drain, crashing the token 36%; team vows compensation
Also, with the $292 million Kelp DAO exploit, DeFi United has announced a recovery plan, securing over $300 million in ETH commitments. The group will convert ETH to rsETH in tranches for the bridge lockbox, enabling controlled liquidations on Aave and Compound to recover around 13,000 ETH. The process will be phased to maintain stability under new safeguards.
Industry observers are questioning whether current audits can keep up with more sophisticated flash-drain attacks. While Sweat Economy’s recovery is seen as a win for coordination, it also shows the industry still relies on pause functions and centralized exchanges to protect decentralized assets.
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