Axie's Ronin Bridge Exploited for $500m -- Now What?

in LeoFinance2 years ago

YIKES.

This... is not the post I wanted to make. On the cusp of the highly anticipated Axie Origin launch, we are facing the most difficult challenge in Lunacian history.

The $500m exploit is a "black swan" event which threatens the solvency and stability of Lunacia itself. Let's quickly cover a few key facts:

Summary of Ronin Bridge Exploit

  • Exploiter used a vulnerability that resulted from security incompetencies -- gaining access to 4 Sky Mavis nodes, but also a fifth from Axie DAO thanks to a non-revoked allowlist access dating back to late 2021 info here
  • 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC were drained from the Ronin Bridge in two transactions
  • All WETH on Ronin is currently backed by nothing
  • The Bridge, as well as Ronin's Katana DEX, have been halted
  • Mixed sentiments in the Axie community, I would say people are more optimistic than pessimistic right now but that's a subjective take

Origin Will Certainly Be Delayed

I was as excited as anybody for Origin, which not only would be a very fun gaming experience but a chance to juice up my content channels and get back into growth mode. Well, NOPE!

There is absolutely no shot that Sky Mavis can launch Origins alpha in the next few days...

Do I even need to explain?

I think the biggest problem is, if they launched Origin right now, that would be a massive fail in terms of focus. You can't go launching a game two days after you get exploited for five hundred million dollars just can't do it. Bad optics on so many levels, unfortunately, even if the teams are completely separate.

IDK man, it is a real shame that this happened. A very bad day for Lunacia. I don't feel good about it, but I have chosen to stand with Axie and will be doing everything I can to help rebuild as we work through this bad situation.

For more thoughts, you can watch my YouTube video which goes into some more details about the situation.

~~~ embed:jJRXesblwB0 youtube ~~~

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Oops. I was just reading the Arstechnica article on this. Security is really hard, especially when money is involved. Seems Ethereum costs too much to be viable for games. Mind you, most Hive games are relying on side chains too. I hope those are more secure.