The Axie Infinity NFT game reopens transactions months after $ 625 million theft

Ronin Bridge, the link that allows users to transfer money to and from accounts in “play to earn” Axie Infinity game, has reopened after a $ 625 million theft that took place in March. Sky Mavis, the developer group behind Axie Infinity and the Ronin blockchain, which runs the game, announced that players can now use the bridge to make deposits and withdrawals.

Since March, the Ronin Bridge has been closed as Sky Mavis worked to strengthen security protocols and restore users’ funds. The attack went unnoticed for six days until a user tried to withdraw money and could not do so. In a postmortem, Sky Mavis blamed a spear-phishing attack that compromised an employee’s account, saying the person no longer works for the company, as well as the lack of a tracking system to monitor large outflows.

After conducting an investigation, the US Treasury Department attributed the hack to the North Korean hacker group Lazarus and issued sanctions against the wallet address that contained the stolen cryptocurrency. Sky Mavis originally planned to have the bridge in operation by the end of April, but later delayed the reopening, citing that “this is not a process we can afford to rush” because the bridge “will secure billions of dollars in assets.”

Sky Mavis seems to have followed up on its promise to compensate players affected by the theft. Although it notes that users’ funds are “fully supported 1: 1 by the new bridge”, Sky Mavis has still not made up for much of the Ronin network’s stolen funds. After raising money from the founders of the Sky Mavis team and receiving $ 150 million in funding from a number of companies, including Binance, the company says that Ronin is currently down with 71,600 ETH (~ 85.8 million dollars) and 25, 5 million USDC ($ 25.5 million). Sky Mavis says that they reimburse these obligations in full.

But this still does not account for the 56,000 WETH (~ $ 67.2 million) lost from the Axie DAO (Decentralized Autonomous Organization) Treasury, the group of people who vote on decisions for the Axie community. Sky Mavis says they are working on law enforcement to collect these funds. If it does not restore them within two years, the DAO will vote on “the next steps.”

In a message on Discord, developers told players that they are also about to add Land Staking this week, which is another scheme to help generate rewards for players who have invested money in the game. The Verge Senior entertainment editor Andrew Webster tried to play the game, saying, “The creatures are all extremely similar, and experimentation is non-existent unless you want to shell out a bunch of cryptocurrencies.”

It is unclear what these changes will do to improve the actual gaming experience, although the back end is now safer. Shortly after the attack, Sky launched Mavis Axie Infinity: Origina newer version that includes free-to-play items to try and attract new players who do not have blockchain wallets yet.

To prevent future thefts, Ronin Bridge has undergone an internal audit and two external audits of the blockchain security companies Verichains and Certik. The bridge also has a new “circuit breaker system” designed to stop suspicious users from making unusually large withdrawals. You can read more about Ronin’s update in the blog post, as well as read about the technical documentation.