MultiversX is now facing a formal trading review at Upbit, one of South Korea’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, after EGLD was flagged on Sept. 21 following a mainnet security incident that forced the network to stop producing blocks over the weekend.
Upbit Designates EGLD a Trading Caution Market
Upbit’s official notice designated EGLD/KRW, EGLD/BTC and EGLD/USDT pairs as trading caution markets after the exchange said an unresolved security incident involving the blockchain could have caused, or could potentially cause, user losses. EGLD deposits and withdrawals remain suspended, with Upbit planning to reopen withdrawals before deposits when transfers eventually resume.
The review will run through a window ending between Oct. 19 and Oct. 23, after which Upbit will decide whether trading support should continue. Losing Upbit listing support would be a severe blow for EGLD liquidity, given the exchange’s dominant share of Korean spot volume.
What Happened on the MultiversX Mainnet
The warning follows a confirmed attempt to exploit a virtual-machine-level atomicity issue on the MultiversX mainnet. MultiversX initially disclosed on Sept. 19 that it was investigating a potential mainnet issue, prioritizing user safety and stable network operation. That first statement did not classify the event as an exploit or confirm any financial loss.
A later project update said an actor had attempted to exploit a VM-level atomicity issue, producing invalid state changes on the network. Developers stopped network progression while engineers worked on a repair, and the team prepared a software fix for testing through a shadow fork, which allows developers to reproduce mainnet conditions without immediately applying changes to the live chain.
MultiversX said deployment would proceed subject to successful testing and would require coordination with validators, exchanges and infrastructure providers. No firm restart deadline has appeared in the public updates so far. Security tracker SlowMist separately recorded the incident as an attempted VM-level atomicity exploit involving invalid on-chain state changes, and its database lists no confirmed loss amount.
Exchanges Pull the Emergency Levers
The episode also highlights how quickly incident response has matured across Korean venues. Upbit’s trading-caution framework was formalized after a series of high-profile delistings and now includes a structured review process with published dates, giving investors a defined window of visibility rather than an open-ended suspension. For tokens designated for caution, the exchange typically weighs the severity of the underlying incident, the project’s remediation speed and the state of investor protection before deciding whether support continues.
Upbit’s action came as several exchanges restricted MultiversX transfers following the network disruption. Upbit had already suspended EGLD deposits and withdrawals at 5:47 p.m. KST on Sept. 19. Bithumb suspended EGLD deposits and withdrawals the same day after MultiversX block production stopped, saying transfer services would remain unavailable until it confirmed network stability. Bithumb has since restored EGLD deposits, though full service resumption across venues depends on the chain restarting cleanly.
Kraken went a step further, placing EGLD trading pairs in cancel-only mode while deposits and withdrawals remained paused. The combination of halted block production and frozen transfers means EGLD holders on centralized venues currently cannot move coins to self-custody, reopening an old debate about custody risk during chain-level incidents.
The Atomicity Problem
VM-level atomicity exploits target the guarantee that smart contract operations either complete entirely or revert entirely. An attacker who can break atomicity can leave a chain in an invalid state, where balances or records reflect partial execution. That class of bug is particularly dangerous because the damage is baked into state itself, which is why MultiversX opted to halt progression rather than let potentially corrupted blocks accumulate.
The shadow-fork testing approach gives validators a way to validate the fix against a copy of real mainnet state before a coordinated restart, reducing the risk of a second incident triggered by a rushed patch.
What Comes Next for EGLD
Three outcomes now dominate the scenario tree. A clean restart with a validated fix before the Upbit review window closes would likely see trading caution lifted and transfers restored, though reputational damage may linger. A delayed or messy restart increases the odds Upbit extends caution status or moves toward delisting. And any confirmation of state corruption or fund loss would escalate the situation from infrastructure incident to full security crisis.
For now, the network’s fate rests on shadow-fork test results that have not yet been publicly announced, while EGLD holders wait on paused withdrawals across the major venues.
Market snapshot: Bitcoin trades at 85,241 USD, Ethereum at 2,727 USD and Solana at 116.63 USD at the time of writing, per CoinGecko data from 12:55 UTC.
network stopped producing blocks for an entire weekend and there is still no postmortem. brutal way to find out your L1 has single points of failure
Upbit giving them a window until Oct 23 is generous tbh, plenty of exchanges would have moved straight to delisting
postmortem will never come. same silence after every halt in this space
they published a review window but still no incident details. tells you what upbit is allowed to know vs what holders are
reopening withdrawals before deposits is standard procedure, but that caution tag on EGLD/KRW drains liquidity either way
held EGLD since 2021 and this one hurts. dyor apparently applies to layer 1s too
A mainnet halting block production is about as serious as it gets and Upbit flagging all three EGLD pairs is the right call. Late October at least gives MultiversX a public deadline.
withdrawals before deposits is standard upbit procedure tbh. keeping the review window public instead of a silent delist is decent of them
held egld since 2021 and this is the first time im genuinely nervous. egld/krw was one of the deepest pairs on upbit, korean volume wont come back fast from a caution tag
same boat, egld krw was most of my volume too. if the caution tag lifts before oct 23 you might get one relief bounce to exit into, thats the only trade i see here
same, been averaging since the 2022 dump. if upbit actually drops the krw pair the korean premium is gone for good