EarthMeta published a Medium article on August 3, 2026, saying that it will launch EMT v2 and migrate its ecosystem from Polygon to Ethereum after a smart contract exploit allowed an attacker to obtain 41 million EMT tokens.
The project said the incident affected a developer testing wallet and a staking rewards wallet, while user wallets, NFTs, accounts, personal information, and platform infrastructure were not compromised.
As part of its response to the incident, EarthMeta withdrew liquidity from the existing EMT pool, halted trading, and initiated a process to launch EMT v2 on Ethereum.
The incident began after a community member alerted the team to unusual on-chain activity involving the EMT token. According to the project's investigation, an attacker exploited a vulnerability in the EMT v1 smart contract and stole 41 million EMT tokens from two project-controlled wallets.
The team said 6 million EMT were stolen from a developer testing wallet, while another 35 million EMT were stolen from a staking rewards wallet. The exploit did not affect user wallets, accounts, NFT ownership, personal information, or the platform's infrastructure.
According to the article, the attacker sold a portion of the stolen EMT for about 3,500 USDT before EarthMeta withdrew liquidity from the token's liquidity pool, saying the move was intended to prevent further sales into the market.
EarthMeta withdrew liquidity from the existing EMT token after determining the attacker still controlled a large number of stolen EMT tokens that could continue to be sold on the market. The project said the liquidity will be restored once EMT v2 launches on Ethereum.
EarthMeta also said it will migrate its ecosystem from Polygon to Ethereum, arguing that "Polygon has gradually lost adoption and market relevance over the past few years," while "Ethereum has remained the leading smart contract blockchain."
According to the project, Ethereum offers deeper liquidity, higher trading volume, broader exchange and wallet support, stronger infrastructure, and greater long-term stability. The migration will cover the EMT token, City NFTs, Land NFTs, President NFTs, staking, and future platform features.
In the article, EarthMeta also published email exchanges between CEO Taha Bouarfa and the attacker. According to the published messages, the attacker initially claimed to control 35 million EMT and said they wanted to sell the tokens without crashing the market.
Bouarfa replied by offering 15,000 USDT in exchange for the return of the 35 million EMT. He argued the amount exceeded what the attacker could likely recover by selling the tokens into existing liquidity pools because of slippage, and proposed completing the transfer in five separate tranches.
The attacker rejected the offer, claiming to control about 40 million EMT and demanding $120,000, including $40,000 in exchange for disclosing another alleged exploit. He also accused EarthMeta of deliberately delaying negotiations for three days to withdraw liquidity from the token's pool.
In a subsequent email, he warned that the settlement demand would increase by $5,000 each day until an agreement was reached and said he would continue selling EMT from the same wallet, claiming it would appear that the EarthMeta team was dumping the token.
EarthMeta said it completed a blockchain snapshot at Polygon block 91,386,400 on August 3, 2026, at 7:17:06 p.m. UTC. According to the team, only balances recorded at that block will be recognized during the migration, and transactions made afterward will not be included.
Eligible holders will automatically receive EMT v2 and their migrated assets on Ethereum without needing to manually transfer tokens. EarthMeta added that token balances, the total EMT supply, staking rewards, and the team's token lock will remain unchanged following the migration.
Looking ahead, EMT v2 is scheduled to launch on Ethereum on August 10 at 18:00 UTC, when trading will resume with an initial price of $0.002 per EMT. The project added that it will publish the official EMT v2 contract before launch.
EarthMeta is a blockchain-based metaverse project that creates a digital version of Earth, allowing users to buy and own NFT representations of real-world cities, land, and landmarks. The platform uses the EMT token for transactions, staking, and other ecosystem activities, and is migrating from Polygon to Ethereum following the recent smart contract exploit.
The project launched its EMT token on exchanges in December 2024 after a successful crypto presale that raised $2.8 million before the token began trading.
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