Axie Infinity Records Largest DeFi Hack of $600M

Ronin has suffered a hack of 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC.
As of today, users are unable to transact with Ronin bridge and Katana Dex.
The team assured that no user’s funds were lost and their tokens are now safe in Ronin.

Sky Mavis’ Axie Infinity, a popular NFT blockchain game, was the newest victim of a crypto hack. The hackers managed to steal around $625 million worth of Ethereum and USDC cryptocurrencies, making it the largest decentralized finance (DeFi) hack of all time.

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According to Ronin’s News blog, Ronin Network’s security has been breached. The hack amounted to around 173,600 ether or approximately $597 million, and $25.5 million worth of USDC stablecoin.

As per DeFiyield rekt database, Ronin’s $625 million exploit exceeded the preceding largest exploit of $602 million on Poly Network in September 2021.

Ronin is an Ethereum sidechain that Sky Mavis created specifically to support Axie Infinity. Axie Infinity is one of the most popular play-to-earn games and saw massive growth in 2021. The community has reportedly reached around 2.9 million users at the end of 2021 and As of February, their NFT transaction volume has reached $4 billion.

According to the company’s blog post, the hacking took place on Ether and USDC. Specifically, the assailants make use of hacked private keys to certify transactions on the network. Moreover, the hacker drained ether and USDC deposits on Ronin from the bridge contract. These private keys allowed the perpetrators to produce fake withdrawals. Interestingly, someone noticed this anomaly a week after a user was unable to withdraw 5K ETH and filed a report.

Meanwhile, Ronin announced in a tweet that they partnered with law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers, and their investors to recover or reimburse funds.

They mentioned that the system prevented users to withdraw or deposit assets in the Ronin Network. Moreover, Ronin will prevent people from converting between the Ethereum and Ronin blockchains. This also means players who keep digital assets on the Ronin network are unable to make transactions as of now.

Ronin guaranteed that all user funds remain untouched. Also, most of the stolen funds currently remain in the hacker’s crypto wallet. In addition, AXS, RON, and SLP on Ronin remain safe.