Morning Edition · Sunday, September 6, 2026Published at 2:01 AM EDT · New York

Term Labs Lost $8.5 Million to a Voter, Not a Bug, as Compound Debates Emergency Powers

The attacker bought enough voting power to control four lending vaults and about 91% of an ether meta vault, then passed proposals instructing them to release funds.

Governance is now an attack surface, and attackers can calculate exactly what it costs to buy control. On 23 August an attacker took roughly $8.5 million from Term Labs vaults without breaking a single contract. The wallet accumulated enoug…