Resolv Labs USR stablecoin drained in $80M minting exploit
Security & Exploits ·
Attackers used roughly $200K in collateral to mint unbacked USR tokens, prompting a full protocol pause and cascading losses across DeFi platforms holding the stablecoin.
Resolv Labs said an exploit allowed attackers to mint 50mn of unbacked USR, and the team has paused all protocol functions while working on recovery, according to the project's own statement posted on X. Total losses tied to the incident are put at $80M, with attackers reportedly needing only about $200K in collateral to trigger the unbacked minting.
A separate accounting of the episode describes a $25M loss through the same minting vulnerability, with one attacker redeeming roughly $0.5M in value before around 9M of the improperly minted tokens were burned, a sequence detailed by CryptoPotato. On-chain activity tied to the exploit was also flagged in a post from a researcher on X.
The fallout extended beyond Resolv itself. Fluid's core team said it secured personal loans to cover all of the bad debt stemming from the USR exploit, while other reports describe cascading contagion across DeFi vaults and protocols that used USR, wstUSR, or RLP as collateral. Aave was reported to remain unaffected by Resolv's restructuring, with the protocol maintaining backed assets and carrying out an orderly repayment of debt.
Adding to the confusion, one user has claimed that an unauthorized direct minting vulnerability in the USR protocol was exploited, saying they minted tokens at 1:1 parity and disputing any involvement in the broader exploit. Community discussion and recovery efforts are also being tracked on a dedicated forum thread.
It remains unclear how the discrepancy between the $80M figure and the $25M and 50mn USR figures will be reconciled, what portion of losses across affected protocols will ultimately be recovered, and whether the user disputing involvement will face further scrutiny. The scope of contagion across other platforms holding USR-related collateral also has not been fully quantified.