SAND Bridge Exploit: Base and BNB Chain Isolated

If you are holding SAND on Base or on BNB Smart Chain, the short answer is this: leave those tokens alone for now. The studio behind the metaverse project The Sandbox announced on August 22, 2026 that its cross-chain bridge on those two networks had been attacked and that unbacked SAND tokens were created in the process. Bridging to both chains has been halted since. Holdings on Ethereum and on Polygon are not affected, according to the studio.

For you as a holder the case therefore splits into two very different situations. If your SAND sits in a wallet on Ethereum or Polygon, or in an account at an exchange, nothing changes for you as things stand. If it sits on Base or on BNB Smart Chain, you are sitting on a holding that at present can neither be brought back over the official bridge nor traded at a reliable price. This article sorts out what is documented, which figures diverge widely and what you can concretely check over the next few days.

SAND Bridge Exploit: What Happened on Base and BNB Chain on August 22

The Sandbox is a metaverse platform whose payment and governance token is called SAND. The token originally exists on Ethereum and is mirrored onto other networks through what is known as a bridge. A bridge is a technical connection that locks a token on one chain and issues an equivalent on another chain, so that the same value becomes usable there.