An unknown actor exploited a vulnerability in the Moonwell protocol on the Base L2 network and stole assets worth approximately $8.7 million. The incident was noted by researchers from CertiK.
#CertiKInsight 🚨
— CertiK Alert (@CertiKAlert) August 27, 2026
We have seen an exploit of @MoonwellDeFi lending market on Base.
Attacker manipulated relatively illiquid MAMO’s collateral price, then borrowed real cbBTC
eg. https://t.co/yOBrkzXzfn
~$8.7M has now been aggregated athttps://t.co/7nIcZ59jpw
Stay Vigilant!
The attacker presumably manipulated the low-liquidity collateral of the MAMO token and borrowed cbBTC, USDC, wstETH, and ETH against it. As a result, the protocol was left with an undercollateralized debt.
Coinminutes emphasized that loss estimates vary and are likely to continue increasing.
Early on-chain estimates pointed to losses of around 50.6 cbBTC, or over $4 million. Analysts from ExVul estimated the damage at approximately 71.36 cbBTC (about $5.7 million), CertiK at $8.7 million, and a number of other observers at around $9 million.
Moonwell representatives confirmed the incident, linking it to the main MAMO market. Developers limited lending on the Base network to 1 wei to prevent increasing the platform's debt.
We are aware of an issue affecting the MAMO Core Market on Base and are actively investigating.
— Moonwell (@MoonwellDeFi) August 27, 2026
As a precaution, borrow caps for all Core Markets on Base have been set to 1 wei, preventing new borrowing and limiting the potential for further impact. The supply caps for MAMO and...
Additionally, supply caps were introduced for MAMO and WELL tokens.
In the first hours after the attack, MAMO showed a price increase, likely due to artificially inflated trading volume. Subsequently, the price declined, but no significant crash occurred.

The native WELL token corrected by 13% to $0.0032.

Recall that on August 19, developers of the Maya Protocol project halted the network following a hacker attack that caused about $1.7 million in damage.
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