Berachain-based Berally reports hack, attacker drains vesting tokens from liquidity pool

According to a post from Berachain-based project, Berally, on its official X page, a hacker got past its defense and got away with vesting tokens from the liquidity pool.

The project left out the precise amount of tokens the hacker drained from the liquidity pool in the post. However, there were instructions for users to follow in the aftermath of the hack.

It looks like we’ve been hacked. Something from our deployer key on our end was leaked, resulting in all vesting tokens being dumped and drained from the liquidity pool.

The dApp contracts are still safe and unaffected by the hack, but please revoke access from the dApp and…

— Berally ?⛓️ (@Berally_io) March 15, 2025

What happened to Berally?

“Looks like we’ve been hacked,” the post from Berally revealed hours ago. “Something from our deployer key on our end was leaked, resulting in all vesting tokens being dumped and drained from the liquidity pool.”

According to the post, dApp contracts were not affected by the hack and are still safe. However, Berally urged users to revoke access from the dApp and Staking while the team makes sense of things.

“We are actively investigating the incident and will provide updates as soon as possible,” the post concluded.

In another post, users were warned not to interact with the Berally token for now. In the comment section of the post, netizens blew hot, disappointed by what happened.

One user wanted to know how devs lost the private keys which seems to be the root cause of the exploit. The X account handler replied with an apology, admitting fault and calling it a “skill issue.”

A builder on Berachain also weighed in with advice and a scathing comment. “Take snapshots by block before the hacker, re-airdrop, and acknowledge the loss of $90k,” they wrote. “Or you can even only buy the token back and cover this 90k.”

The user also added that the Berally team had been warned several times about its “several vulnerabilities” but that, in this case, the exploit happened because a “dev leaked the key.”

Other user comments also seemed to imply that most believed the exploit was an inside job and that a scam had been perpetrated.

Berachain’s co-founder Smokey also took to X to report the hack. His tweet went out before the hack was officially reported by Berally and urged users to be cautious, citing fears of a potential exploit.

How Berachain has been doing since it launched

Berachain is an EVM-identical Layer 1 blockchain that utilizes the Proof of Liquidity (PoL) consensus mechanism. It launched its mainnet on February 6, 2025, and its native token, BERA, reached an all-time high of $14.99 on the same day.

Unfortunately, it was unable to sustain that value; those who received the airdrop, which was 15.8% of the total 500 million supply, took profit along with market uncertainty, which triggered a sharp decline.

As such, BERA dropped to as low as $4.74 within days. By mid-February, the price had stabilized somewhat, hovering around $6.04 to $6.20.

BERAUSDT 1-hour price chart

In February, Smokey, the chain’s founder, took to X with a long post detailing his thoughts on the launch and how things were going.

“Honestly, as I sit down to write this post, I’m still at a bit of a loss for words. The chain wasn’t real for so long that, at this point, it almost feels weirder that it is,” the post began.

“I’m a little torn because I could certainly write exactly about how I feel, and feed an army of trolls, or I could bullpost into the void and seem like a delusional goof (which I occasionally am),” it continued.

Smokey listed many of what the chain had going for it, then said that “as the full Proof of Liquidity feature set rolls out, user incentives from their favorite applications, and exciting novel dApps + rewards vaults going live on Berachain, we’ll get to see whether the Emperor really has clothes.”

Smokey also admitted that he knows there is a lot of room to improve and that there have been mistakes along the way, but he also vowed the team will do its absolute best to make the improvements happen.

As he rounded up the long post, he thanked his team for “putting up with me and my stupidity on a daily basis” and teaching him something new every day.

“I’m privileged to work with a group of brilliant devs and indomitable BD beras while building this chain,” Smokey added. “The market’s not pretty. I’m not gonna pretend I’m happy about it, but I’d rather see fairweather friends depart now than worry about them down the road.”

Berachain has faced criticism about its ever-present sell pressure based on concerns about tokenomics. Berachain reportedly sold over 35% of BERA supply to private investors across multiple funding rounds. Long vesting schedules also contribute to the persistent sell pressure.

Berachain’s price struggles are also giving investors concerns. Unlike Hyperliquid, which has managed to sustain its gains, Berachain is now struggling to prove its long-term value beyond the initial hype.

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