Saga's SagaEVM chain loses about US$7 million to unbacked stablecoin minting; chain being shut down
Attackers abused a flaw in SagaEVM's inherited Ethermint code to mint Saga Dollars without backing and took about US$7M on 21 Jan 2026. No recovery reported. SagaEVM is reportedly shutting down 23 Nov 2026: if you hold assets on it, withdraw them.
If you hold any assets on SagaEVM, including Saga Dollar, withdraw them before the reported 23 November 2026 shutdown, and check Saga's official channels first. Otherwise nothing for you to do.
What’s happening
On 21 January 2026, attackers exploited a flaw in SagaEVM, an Ethereum-compatible chain on the Saga network. Halborn says the bug sat in validation code of an Ethermint EVM precompile that SagaEVM inherited, letting crafted cross-chain messages mint Saga Dollar stablecoins with no collateral behind them. The attacker swapped them for real assets, about US$7 million, bridged them to Ethereum and converted them to ether. Saga paused the chain at block 6,593,800; Saga Dollar fell to about US$0.75 and total value locked roughly halved. Saga said no validators or signing keys were compromised and that it was working to get the receiving address blacklisted. Halborn reported that a significant portion went through Tornado Cash; none of the sources I read reports any money recovered or any compensation plan. Saga promised a post-mortem, which I did not find. CoinMarketCap, summarising a Saga AI Labs post I could not read, reports SagaEVM is being wound down, with final shutdown on 23 November 2026. Saga Mainnet and the SAGA token are said to be unaffected.
- What
- Breach
- Affects
- Saga SagaEVM chain and Saga Dollar stablecoin
- Fixed in
- Nothing to patch
- Since
- 21 Jan 2026
Timeline
- Update
CoinMarketCap summarised a Saga AI Labs post announcing a wind-down of SagaEVM: a 60-day sunset from 24 September 2026 and final shutdown on 23 November 2026, with users told to withdraw assets. Saga Mainnet and the SAGA token are unaffected. I could not read the original post.
- Update
Halborn's analysis attributed the flaw to validation code in an Ethermint EVM precompile that SagaEVM inherited, which let crafted cross-chain messages mint Saga Dollars without collateral. It reported a significant share of the loot went through Tornado Cash and mentioned no recovery.
- Update
Saga said there was no consensus failure, validator compromise or key leak, that it had added safeguards, and that it was working with exchanges and bridges to blacklist the receiving address. The chain was to stay paused until a post-mortem. Total value locked fell from over US$37 million to US$16 million, per DefiLlama.
- Made publicNothing to patch
Saga paused its SagaEVM chain at block 6,593,800 after an exploit drained about US$7 million. The stolen funds were bridged out and converted to ether, and the Saga Dollar stablecoin fell to about US$0.75.
Sources
- Saga pauses SagaEVM after $7M exploitCointelegraph · 22 Jan 2026
- Explained: the SagaEVM hack (January 2026)Halborn · 26 Jan 2026
- Latest Saga (SAGA) News UpdateCoinMarketCap · 1 Nov 2026