Axie Infinity Hacked: Ronin Bridge Exploited For Over $600 Million

According to the latest news, Ronin Network (RON), the sidechain created by the Sky Mavis team, was under a heavy hacking attack. The loss is estimated at over $600 million.

Ronin Network also announced the hack on the project’s official Twitter channel.

“We are working with law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers, and our investors to make sure all funds are recovered or reimbursed. All of the AXS, RON, and SLP on Ronin are safe right now,” said Sky Mavis.

Biggest Hack In History

Ronin Network said that a security bug in the Ronin Network was exploited for a total of 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5 million USDC.

The Ronin Bridge and the Katana Dex exchange are both temporarily closed at the time of publication.

Sky Mavis, the firm behind the NFT Axie Infinity game, introduced the Ronin Network in February 2021.

As previously stated, Ronin Network is a solution to the Ethereum network’s high delivery fees and constant congestion.

This sidechain was intended to effectively support Axie Infinity users and facilitate the purchases and sales of in-game items.

Ronin’s chain, in particular, is made up of 9 validator nodes. Users must confirm 5 out of 9 pre-issued codes in order to withdraw or deposit.

Hackers gained control of four Ronin validators as well as a third-party validator, the Axie DAO.

A Fluid Situation

Sky Mavis requested assistance from Axie DAO in November 2021 owing to a high amount of transactions.

Sky Mavis has been granted authorization to sign the transaction by the Axie DAO side. However, access to the credential list has not been terminated after the end of support.

The event will go down in history as the biggest hack of the cryptocurrency market. Following the incident at the Ronin Bridge, the value of Sky Mavis’ digital currencies plummeted dramatically.

The price of RON, in particular, plummeted as a result of the attack.

This is the Sky Mavis ecosystem’s most heavily discounted cryptocurrency.

According to CoinMarketCap data, the price of RON dropped from $2,284 to $1,694 in just a few minutes, a 22% decline. Simultaneously, the prices of AXS and SLP have been steadily declining.

Binance exchange data states that the price of AXS, the cryptocurrency of the game Axie Infinity, has dropped 5.54%. SLP, the coin used to reward game players, fell by roughly 5.93% as well.

That suggests the investors are fleeing the project to protect their assets.

In fact, the hack happened probably 5 or 6 days ago.

According to the Ronin team, the issue was detected after receiving reports that customers were unable to withdraw payments on the evening of March 29. Hackers drained money from the Ronin Network using secret keys stolen from Axie DAO.

The hacker stole the authorization code from the Axie DAO while getting access to Sky Mavis’ system.

The specified sum is still in the attacker’s wallet address. A portion of the funds have been moved to the FTX exchange, and CEO Sam Bankman-Fried has confirmed this and stated that he will offer the support needed.

The hacker also relocated money on Crypto.com, according to security firm SlowMist. Meanwhile, the money used to carry out the attack originated from the Binance exchange.

Hackers Gonna Hack

In February, Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin warned of the risks of employing cross-chain bridges to transfer tokens across blockchains.

Vitalik Buterin highlighted a risk of cross-chaining in which one of the two connected blockchains suffers a 51% attack. A single breakdown on this blockchain can affect all assets linked to its counterpart on other blockchains.

And now a lot of things are happening.

After Solana’s Wormhole ($325 million), this is the second-largest bridge attack in 2022. This is regarded as a significant setback for Axie Infinity, which is due to release a new version named Axie Infinity: Origin.

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