The crypto industry as a whole is still considered to be in its infancy, although the older projects are beginning to take up what appears to be a more stable form.However, when it comes to new sectors, such as DeFi, NFTs, the Metaverse, and Web3 projects a lot of it is still very fluid and untested.
Many among the DeFi protocols that deal with decentralized lending have been struggling to maintain liquidity amid the bearish market, with crypto prices crashing for nearly eight full months now.Meanwhile, a lot of decentralized bridges have been suffering exploits that resulted in massive thefts.
Earlier this year, in March, hackers managed to exploit a validator node vulnerability, which allowed them to siphon 173,600 ETH and around $25.5 million in USDC from the Ronin Bridge.Now, Sky Mavis, the developer of a leading metaverse game, Axie Infinity, announced the decision to reimburse the users affected by the hack.
At the time of the hack, the total loss was estimated at $625 million.However, due to the dropping price of Ethereum, around $216.5 million will be returned to the hack victims.
Ronin Bridge is about to be restarted
Sky Mavis previously managed to raise $150 million in April, in a round led by Binance .The company stated that the funds will be used to reimburse the affected users.Now, the time for the users to get back the stolen funds has come, and Sky Mavis plans to deliver the funds on June 28th.
Furthermore, Sky Mavis also announced that the bridge will be restarted on the same day, which is a move that will require a hard fork.All validators will have to update their software to a new version in order to return to work.
Aleksander Larsen, the co-founder and COO of Sky Mavis, stated that the bridge will be refilled with the user-owned ETH and USDC and that everything is currently advancing according to plan.The validators are ready to get back to the project, and everything is proceeding according to schedule.
• We plan on re-opening the Ronin Bridge on June 28th, with all user funds returned.
• Re-opening will require on a Ronin hard-fork which requires all validators to update their software.
• Validators have been informed regarding next steps to upgrade their validating node.
— Ronin (@Ronin_Network) [June 23, 2022]
The hack was linked to the North Korean Lazarus group
Another thing worth noting is that the identity of the hacking group responsible for the attack has been revealed in the meantime.According to the FBI, the group responsible is the infamous Lazarus — a North Korean hacking collective that has been involved in a variety of attacks and breaches over the years.
North Korean hackers have been targeting crypto projects for years, obtaining digital assets in large quantities.Furthermore, the country itself has been developing a stronger and stronger interest in cryptocurrency, to the point where it even invited crypto experts from around the world to hold lectures and speeches regarding cryptocurrency in the past.It is generally believed that North Korea plans to use digital assets to bypass sanctions, similar to what other sanctioned nations have been doing over the years.
To learn more visit our Investing in Axie Infinity guide..
