Axie Infinity Delays the Launch of ‘Origin’ After Suffering Million Dollar Exploit

The Vietnamese developer has decided to delay the release of the Axie Infinity update by a week.
Several crypto exchanges have pledged to help Sky Mavis track down those responsible for the Ronin parallel chain theft uncovered on Tuesday.

Sky Mavis, the developers behind ‘Axie Infinity‘ have delayed the release of the game’s long-awaited update, after their network suffered a hack. The theft, resulting in losses of more than $600 million in cryptocurrencies, was revealed by the company on Tuesday 29th.

‘Axie Infinity: Origin’, an updated version of the beloved game, is now scheduled to be released a week later than the developers originally announced. The decision comes after hackers made off with around $622 million in digital funds defrauded from the Ronin Network sidechain.

The update to the NFT-based pet battling game was initially scheduled for launch on Thursday, March 31st. However, due to the theft that occurred on March 23rd and discovered only this week, Axie infinity: Origin will instead be released on April 7th.

In-Depth Investigation

The Vietnam-based startup revealed in a statement that:

"While the game is set for a soft launch, we have decided to give the engineering and security team an additional window of time to fully investigate the full implications of the breach, before asking for their full attention in supporting Origin's launch."

The hacker took the opportunity to bypass the security system of the Ronin network, connected to Ethereum, and drained around 173,600 ETH and a further 25.5 million USDC stablecoins.

The attack went unnoticedfor some time, and was not discovered until a user tried to make a withdrawal of 5,000 ETH that was stored in that parallel chain, but was unable to do so.

According to Sky Mavis’ explanation, the exploit was achieved by the criminal using “hacked private keys” to take control of five out of the nine validators required to sign transactions through the Ronin network.

Stolen Funds Will Be Refunded

After being made aware of the exploit, the developer proceeded to temporarily suspend the bridge connecting Ronin to Ethereum and the Katana decentralized exchange (DEX) to prevent a new attack.

The studio said it would ensure “that all funds are recovered or refunded” to their original owners, and is working with both the relevant authorities and blockchain crime investigation company Chainalysis to track down those responsible.

A number of crypto exchange companies have pledged support for Sky Mavis to aid in finding the hackers. Meanwhile, the company has assured users that the remaining funds held by the company are secure.

Why You Should Care

Sky Mavis is confident that it will be able to identify who is behind the hack.
“The chance that they can be identified and brought to justice” is pretty high, said company Co-Founder Jeff Zirlin in NFTLA.
The hackers have reportedly transferred some of the looted assets to other crypto platforms.