TAC Protocol's native token has climbed roughly 53% from its recent all-time low after an attack two days earlier forced validators to halt the chain. The attacker gained access through a security gap and drained a single account before the network was stopped.

The team has attributed the flaw to a shared vulnerability in the Cosmos EVM precompile layer rather than to the chain's own code.

What the attacker actually reached

The breach was noticed and flagged on August 22 via the protocol's X account, where the chain announced that it was investigating an exploited gap on its Cosmos-based EVM side and would temporarily halt the network following the validators' decision.

Two days later, the team disclosed that the attacker had drained a single account before the network halted all transactions at block 24,671,475.

According to TAC, the damage was contained, and only $TAC — the native token — was stolen before the chain was halted. The halt came within minutes of the exploit being spotted; earlier incidents had hit bridged user assets rather than just the native token itself. The disclosures so far have not stated how much $TAC was taken, whose account was drained, or when validators plan to resume block production.

TAC says the defect is not its own infrastructure

TAC placed the bug outside its own codebase. The team said the vulnerability sat in the Cosmos EVM precompile layer, a shared module, rather than in anything belonging to TAC, and noted that several other chains run the same code. Precompiles are built-in functions compiled into an EVM chain's core software rather than deployed as ordinary smart contracts, so a defect in that layer sits below what typical application-level audits examine.

That extends the stakes beyond TAC holders to anyone building on Cosmos EVM chains. Because the flaw sits in shared code rather than TAC-specific code, any fix or disclosure timeline could affect not only TAC but also other projects built on Cosmos EVM chains.

The failure mode has precedent in the same stack. In July 2025, attackers used a precompile vulnerability in the Cosmos EVM framework to drain more than $16 million from chains including Fetch.ai and UPTN, forcing emergency halts and upgrades across networks running the shared code.

Price increase is a bounce from all-time lows

The token's recovery looks considerably stronger in percentage terms than in dollar terms. Before the attack, CoinMarketCap logged TAC's all-time low at $0.001129 as of August 22, and since then the token has recovered about 53% of that plunge. Over the past 24 hours, it swung between $0.001626 and $0.001894.

The bounce has not materially changed the token's position. TAC's June 30 peak of $0.06688 now sits far above current levels, leaving the token down 97.4% from its all-time high.

At the time of writing, TAC's market cap stands at roughly $8.3 million, with $2.46 million in 24-hour trading volume and a CoinMarketCap rank of #1007. Circulating supply sits at around 4.8 billion tokens.

Third major scare in four months

$TAC has had a rough few months, with the platform enduring its third major scare in four months. Back in May, an attacker stole about $2.8 million from the TON side of its cross-chain bridge, affecting USDT, BLUM, and tsTON balances. The TAC team reclassified the incident as white-hat activity after recovering about 90% of the funds — the exploiter kept 10% as a bounty — and reopened bridge transfers between TON and TAC on June 10.

The calm did not last. The token dropped by around 82% to roughly $0.0056 on July 7 with no explanation. By August, just before the latest exploit, TAC was already weak, which is why a 53% bounce off the floor still leaves the token near record lows.