Nesa Chain Cosmos EVM Underflow Exploit — $50M Nominal / ~$60K Net Profit

On August 24, 2026, an attacker exploited the same shared Cosmos EVM underflow vulnerability against Nesa, a chain later identified independently by analytics firm Bubblemaps rather than named directly by Cosmos Labs' own report. The attacker funded a wallet via Monero, purchased approximately $250,000 worth of NES, bridged it to Nesa, exploited the bug to inflate the balance roughly 200-fold, and bridged approximately $50 million in nominal NES back to Ethereum. However, because liquidity had been withdrawn from relevant pools before most of the selling occurred, the attacker faced extreme slippage across the resulting DEX and CEX-routed swaps, netting only approximately $60,000 in real profit against roughly $255,000 spent — a stark contrast between nominal exposure and actual realized gain. Bitvavo suspended NES deposits and withdrawals on August 24 as a precaution. Bubblemaps noted that the funding method for this exploit differed meaningfully from the pattern seen on the other affected chains, raising the possibility that Nesa was targeted by a separate actor exploiting the same underlying bug independently.