Hackers steal $625 million from nft game Axie Infinity’s blockchain

By admin On Mar 30, 2022

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Unauthorized people have stolen about 625 million by hacking the blockchain behind play-to-earn game Axie Infinity. It concerns a theft of ethereum and USDC, a cryptocurrency that is pegged to the US dollar.

According to an official message of the Ronin Network, the blockchain behind Axie Infinity, it was discovered on Tuesday that the validator nodes of gamemaker Sky Mavis and Axie DAO had been compromised on March 23. That resulted in the theft of 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5 million USDC on the Ronin Bridge in the form of two transactions.

The attacker used five hacked validator private keys for the theft. The involved parties tracked down the theft after a user reported that it was impossible to withdraw 5000 ethereum from the bridge, making it possible to withdraw and deposit funds from Ronin’s blockchain. This bridge is in fact a bridging function between the game and other blockchains such as ethereum.

According to Sky Mavis, making transactions has now been frozen, so that no more money can be withdrawn from the blockchain. Only when it is certain that no more money can be withdrawn, the Ronin Bridge will be opened again. Furthermore, the parties say they are in the process of migrating their nodes so that they are completely separate from the old infrastructure. There is also cooperation with government agencies to bring the criminals to justice, but Sky Mavis gives no further details. According to the company, the stolen amounts are still present in the hacker’s wallet.

Axie Infinity is all about collecting and training Axies. Those are little critters that you can use to breed new Axies. In addition, it is possible to use Axies to fight against other Axies. Its purpose is to collect Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) and Smoot Love Potions (SLP). These are Ethereum-based cryptocurrencies. Players can cash out these tokens from Axie Infinity, allowing them to use their in-game assets in the real world. Axie Infinity is a very popular play-to-earn game.