Qubic Restarts Blockchain and Opens Recovery Claims After $1.4M Wallet-Seed Hack
Published October 21, 2026, 7:28 AM PKT. Based on Qubic's latest update (primary source), with additional reporting from Cointelegraph, PANews, CoinDesk and MABOnChain's October 18 report on the halt (secondary sources).
Qubic has restarted its blockchain and opened a recovery-claims platform after a wallet-seed vulnerability let an attacker drain roughly $1.4 million in QU tokens from 1,404 accounts, the layer-1 project said in its latest update. The restart closes the network halt that MABOnChain reported on October 18, 2026, when Qubic froze the chain to stop further movement of stolen funds.
The chain restarts past tick 85 million
Qubic's blockchain explorer shows the network resumed processing ticks at 8:00 pm on October 19, advancing beyond tick 85,371,949, the point where it was halted on Sunday, October 18, according to Cointelegraph. The project's validators, known as Computors, approved a recovery plan, and the project launched a claims platform for affected wallet holders, Qubic said.
Affected users can check whether their address was hit and submit a claim through Qubic's reclaim platform, the project said. The deadline for claims is May 1, 2027, and Qubic describes the reclaim site as the sole official claims website. A full technical report on the incident will follow, according to PANews.
87 percent immobilized, MEXC froze the rest
The drain itself ran for under two hours, from 23:42 UTC on October 17 to 01:26 UTC on October 18, when about 2.94 trillion QU moved out of 1,404 wallets, according to Qubic's October 18 incident report and CoinDesk's account of it. Qubic reported that 87.1 percent of the stolen QU stayed immobilized on the paused network, while the remaining 12.9 percent was sent to MEXC, which froze the receiving account.
During the suspension, affected funds were transferred to a protected escrow account, PANews reported, and the first batch of recovered funds has already been returned to verified owners.
The weak-seed flaw and the wallet warning
The vulnerability traced to predictable wallet seeds produced by Qubic's web wallet on certain Apple devices and browsers, where an insecure random-number generator could produce seeds an attacker could guess, according to Cointelegraph. Qubic said the seed-generation flaw was fixed in the latest version of its web wallet, version 4.26.4, released October 19.
The warning in Qubic's latest update is blunt and applies even to users who lost nothing: "If you created your wallet with the Qubic web wallet before version 4.26.4 (released 19 October), treat it as insecure, even if your funds were never touched," Qubic said. "Update to web wallet 4.26.4 or later, then create a new wallet," the team said. "Move your funds to the new wallet as soon as you can, and never use the old one again."
The recovery now turns on claims rather than chain surgery: the network is live again, the escrowed funds have a route back to verified owners, and the open question is how many of the 1,404 affected accounts file before the May 2027 deadline, and what the promised technical report says about how the flaw survived into production.
This article is news reporting and is not investment advice.
Sources
- Qubic, latest update via X, October 20, 2026, primary source: the network restart, the Computor quorum's approval of the recovery plan, the launch of the claims platform, the May 1, 2027 claims deadline, the sole official reclaim site, and the warning that wallets created with the web wallet before version 4.26.4 should be treated as insecure
- Cointelegraph, "Qubic Restarts Blockchain After $1.4M Wallet Hack," October 20, 2026, secondary source: the explorer showing ticks resuming at 8:00 pm on October 19 past tick 85,371,949, the roughly $1.4 million drained from 1,404 accounts, the predictable seeds from an insecure random-number generator on certain Apple devices and browsers, the version 4.26.4 fix, and the full wallet-migration warning
- PANews, "Qubic Network Resumes Operations, Affected Funds Open for Claims," October 21, 2026, secondary source: the protected escrow account used during the suspension, the first batch of funds returned to verified owners, the sole official claims website, and the full technical report still to come
- CoinDesk, "Qubic restarts chain, opens claims after wallet drain," October 20, 2026, secondary source: the 2.94 trillion QU moved between 23:42 UTC on October 17 and 01:26 UTC on October 18, the 87.1 percent immobilized on the paused network, and the 12.9 percent sent to MEXC, which froze the receiving account
- MABOnChain, "Qubic Loses $1.3M as 1,404 Wallets Drained in Seed-Randomness Attack, Network Halted," October 18, 2026, secondary source: the original halt report, the October 18 incident report details, the tick 85,371,949 halt point, and the seed flaw affecting iPhone and iPad browsers, Mac Safari and the old Qubic iOS app
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