At approximately 06:18 UTC on August 31st, a vulnerability in Ankr's ankrFLOW liquid staking contract allowed an attacker to create approximately 8.6 million ankrFLOW with no backing. This was not an exploit of Flow EVM or the Flow protocol and it does not affect Flow Tokenomics.
The attacker then used this ankrFLOW as collateral on the MORE Markets lending protocol to drain its WFLOW reserve, taking around 15.5 million WFLOW, worth approximately $410,000. After slippage, the attacker realized approximately $246,000. Some reports have incorrectly reported the impact at ~$9.3 million. We have asked the team that first published the erroneous figure for a formal correction.
No MORE Markets or ankrFLOW depositor has lost funds, and no FLOW holder is affected.
The underlying exploit was not a vulnerability in Flow EVM or MORE Markets. It was in an Ankr Solidity smart contract. At no point was the Flow network exploited or directly impacted.
Within hours, Ankr and MORE Markets both paused the affected contracts, containing the issue. Some exchange partners paused FLOW deposits as a precaution until the situation was fully understood. We have been in contact with those partners, and given the issue is contained and the network is operating normally, we have asked them to re-enable FLOW deposits and expect that shortly.
Liquidity in the ankrFLOW/WFLOW pool on Flow EVM was impacted, and rebalancing that pool is part of the remediation. Working together with Ankr, Flow Foundation will replace the funds drained from the MORE Markets WFLOW reserve and ensure the liquidity pools are rebalanced.
The Flow network is operating normally. AnkrFLOW staking and MORE Markets lending remain paused until Ankr deploys the contract upgrade that fixes the root cause. If you have funds in either, they are safe and will be retrievable once the protocols are unpaused. No action is needed from users, developers or partners.
Thank you to all of our partners and community members who acted fast to flag this issue to the relevant teams. Flow network and FLOW token are fully operational, without issue.
Several outlets reported the situation accurately, or have updated their coverage once the facts were clear. You can find of them linked below:
- CryptoAdventure - Ankr contract exploit drains $410K from MORE Markets WFLOW reserve
- Shattered - More Markets Hack Drains ~$410K via E-Mode Flaw [2026]
