Avici pledges full refunds after Solana card exploit hits users

Avici confirmed Friday it will reimburse every user impacted by the recent Solana card exploit, according to a Crypto Briefing report. The pledge covers 100% of lost funds, though the company has not disclosed the total amount stolen or the precise technical vector. The incident struck Avici's card bridge that lets holders spend SOL at merchants. Attackers drained user balances before the team halted the integration. Avici said it identified the vulnerability, patched the affected contracts, and engaged blockchain forensic firms to trace the outflows. No timeline for the refund distribution was provided. Solana traded at $103.71 on Friday, down 4.56% in the past 24 hours but still 14.20% higher over the prior seven days, per CoinGecko. Daily volume hit $6.04 billion against a $60.58 billion market cap, keeping SOL at rank seven. The token's 7-day close series, 94.44, 92.42, 94.08, 100.3, 96.92, 101.82, 106.44, shows a steady climb interrupted only by mid-week consolidation. Broader markets sold off alongside the news. Total crypto market cap dropped 5.39% to $2.63 trillion with $97 billion in 24-hour volume. Bitcoin dominance rose to 59.0% while Ethereum held 11.1%, a pattern that typically signals risk-off rotation into the largest assets. The exploit highlights a recurring attack surface: off-ramp products that custody user keys to enable fiat spending. Avici's card required depositing SOL into a company-controlled smart contract, creating a centralized honeypot. Similar bridges at competitors like MoonPay and Wirex have faced scrutiny over custodial risk, though neither has reported a comparable breach. Avici's full-refund commitment exceeds the partial-recovery norm seen in past card exploits. When the Crypto.com Visa integration suffered a 2022 hot-wallet breach, users waited months for a 70% payout. The Avici team's immediate 100% promise may reflect pressure from Solana Foundation partners, who have prioritized consumer-protection optics ahead of the network's next upgrade cycle. Traders watching SOL's price action note the token held above the $100 psychological level despite the headline. Funding rates on perpetual futures flipped slightly negative Friday, indicating mild short bias, but open interest remained flat, suggesting the exploit news did not trigger fresh directional positioning. The next technical test sits at $107, the weekly high printed before the sell-off. The refund execution timeline will determine whether Avici restores trust or becomes a cautionary case for custodial crypto cards. On-chain monitors have flagged the exploiter's wallet cluster; any movement toward mixers or exchanges could accelerate recovery. For now, the market prices the breach as an Avici-specific failure, not a Solana protocol flaw.