The attack took effect a week ago but came public eye on Tuesday. After the news, the Ronin token crumbled down at least 20%, and AXS also got harmed.
The Axie Infinity network, one of the most famous games in the crypto environment, has just fell victim to a hacking attack that could get described as one of the biggest hacks in history.
Ronin Network, the gaming-focused Ethereum sidechain, suffered an attack on Tuesday that mined cryptocurrencies worth a combined amount that might surpass $625 million. The team behind the network went to their social media networks to highlight the crime. The affected entities reported losses of at least 173,600 Ethereum (ETH) and 25.5 million in USDC.
According to a report made by the developers, the attack harmed Ronin Network validation nodes for Sky Mavis, the entities in charge of the popular game Axie Infinity, and Axie’s decentralized autonomous organization (DAO).
The malicious actor reportedly employed the hacked private keys to fake withdrawals and managed to extract funds from the Ronin bridge in just two operations. The exploit happened on March 23, but it became public this Tuesday after a user experienced difficulties trying to carry out a withdrawal valued at 5,000 ETH from the Ronin bridge without success.
The Ronin sidechain has nine validators that need five signatures for withdrawals, a design intended to protect the system from such attacks. However, the factual report indicates that the hacker would have found “a backdoor” through the RPC node without gas, “which they abused to obtain the signature for the Axie DAO validator.”
RON token Crumble Down after the News
According to CoinDesk, which gathered data from Etherscan, the Ronin attacker’s address is new, and he managed to transfer Ether from the Binance exchange just a week ago. Most of the funds seem to be intact in that address, although just over 6,000 ETH (about $20 million) got migrated to other addresses.
The incident caused severe damage to the price of RON, Ronin’s primary government token, which has crumbled down at least 20% or more, according to data from CoinMarketCap. The coin went from $2.2 to $1.6 in minutes after the news of the crime. Also, Axie Infinity’s token, AXS, faced a sudden decline amid the reports.
Meanwhile, based on that network, the Ronin bridge and the Katana Automated Market Maker (AMM) got suspended while investigations on the subject evolved.
The Ronin team clarified that they joined efforts with law enforcement officials, cryptographers, and investors to make sure that all the extracted assets get saved and go back to their owners.
Hacks on cross-chain protocols and sidechains have become everyday events in the crypto environment, although the amount extracted from Ronin is high compared to other cases. In August 2021, a hacker mined $600 million into the Poly Network cross-chain decentralized finance (DeFi) protocol; but most funds returned soon after.
By: Jenson Nuñez
