The last post made by Initia on X about the exploit, at 17:02 UTC on Nov. 10, says: “Asset recovery efforts are ongoing with the help of law enforcement and security partners.” No later post had appeared by 09:00 UTC on Nov. 12.
In the meantime, though, the Initia exploit rally reached its conclusion. On Nov. 11 at 05:00 UTC, the price of INIT in the spot market of Binance was $0.395, while, on Nov. 12 at 09:00 UTC, it fell to $0.134, which is 66% lower.
The Initia exploit rally went back to where it started
The Nov. 9 open on Binance was $0.1204. On Nov. 10 at 14:00 UTC, the price rose to $0.3319, which came about eight hours after the chain was halted. The price rose to $0.395, which is a 228% rise compared to the initial price, while the perpetual contract stood near $0.29 in the same hour.
Yet, almost the whole Initia exploit rally was erased in a single day. The price of the INIT dropped to $0.188 at 07:00 UTC on Nov. 11, closing the day at around $0.14 with a lowest of $0.1105 recorded at 03:00 UTC on Nov. 12, below the opening price on Nov. 9. The $0.1322 low of Nov. 11 was also breached on the same occasion.
The trend line drawn between the $0.395 high and the $0.1485 high at 04:00 UTC on November 12 is purely a downtrend; consequently, each bounce since the top has stopped at a lower level than the one before.
Open interest more than halved
The open interest on Binance’s INIT perpetual that is the value of open wagers stood at $22.5 million at 19:00 UTC on Nov. 10 and had fallen to $9.6 million at 09:00 UTC on Nov. 12. The trading volume for this contract in the past 24 hours is $414 million compared to $1.04 billion in the past 24 hours up to 17:00 UTC on Nov. 10 as reported by CryptoNewsLive.
The funding rate, the hourly fee paid between the two sides of the perpetual, remained negative during this period of time indicating that those who were betting on a decrease paid those betting on an increase. The funding rate reached negative 1.7% in the hour starting at 00:00 UTC on Nov. 11, while it ranged between negative 0.07% and negative 0.10% an hour on the morning of Nov. 12.
A second halt in under two weeks
Initia posted on Nov. 2 that its L1 and rollups were “now online and operational” after the security incident of Oct. 23. On Nov. 10, the chain was halted again at 06:18 UTC after an attack that Initia traced to a compromised cloud key.
How the Nov. 10 report held up
In the Nov. 10 report about the said exploit, INIT was said to be trading through contracts rather than through a functioning network. Likewise, Orochi Network, whose 68% gain was erased within five hours on Nov. 9, followed the same path.
What the chart leaves open after the Initia exploit rally
Assuming that INIT stays above the $0.1204 open, the $0.1105 low will be the support for this move. Should the price close below the $0.1105, then there is no level of support on the chart since Nov. 9. Neither reading is a prediction, crypto is volatile, and a cryptocurrency whose blockchain is paused can change after one post. According to CoinGecko, the market cap of INIT is about $28.5 million on 219.2 million circulating tokens, against an all-time high price of $1.42.
