Rhea Finance Loses $18.4 Million in Oracle Attack, Recovers Some Funds

Rhea Finance is the largest decentralized finance, or DeFi, protocol in the NEAR Protocol ecosystem, offering lending and trading services. Price oracles supply asset prices to onchain contracts. If those prices or related liquidity pools are manipulated, attackers can exploit distorted valuations and drain liquidity. The incident exposed critical weaknesses in the protocol’s risk controls and asset-pricing mechanisms.

Rhea Finance suffered a price-oracle manipulation attack on April 16, 2026. The team later confirmed losses of about $18.4 million, above its initial estimate of $7.6 million. With assistance from onchain investigator ZachXBT and stablecoin issuer Tether, 4.34 million USDT was frozen, while the attacker returned additional assets. About $7.8 million has been recovered or frozen in total, representing roughly 42% of the losses.