Axie Infinity is Back in Business as Ronin Bridge Reopens

The cryptocurrency pay-to-earn game Axie Infinity is back online following a massive $625 million heist.

Return to Business for Axie Infinity

The Verge reported that according to a statement by Sky Mavis, the developer group behind Axie Infinity, and the Ronin blockchain, players may now use the bridge to make deposits and withdrawals.

The Ronin network, an Ethereum sidechain that powers the game, has vulnerabilities that were exploited by the hacker. Surprisingly, Ronin, which has been revived following a few audits, would still be used by Axie Infinity moving forward, as per Engadget.

The company described a new "circuit-breaker" technology for flagging withdrawal limits, human reviewers, and "large, suspicious withdrawals" in a blog post. Players were also promised the release of a new land staking function later this week, which is supposed to allow game owners of digital land to generate passive revenue.

Players of Axie Infinity are advised not to send money to Ronin Bridge's smart contract address right away. Any money transferred directly to the contract addresses of the Ronin Bridge will be lost forever, the company stated in its statement. "The Ronin Bridge should only be accessed and used for deposits/withdrawals through the Ronin Bridge UI."

The Verge, on the other hand, mentioned dhat the Ronin Bridge has underwent one internal audit and two external audits by blockchain security companies Verichains and Certik to assist prevent potential thefts.

$625 Million Hack

According to Engadget, a group of hackers stole about 26 million USDC (worth roughly $26 million) and nearly 173,600 Ethereum from the game's network in March.

Sky Mavis announced last week that it will start compensating the victims of the theft; however, it failed to take into account the decline in Ethereum's value over the previous three months. This meant that customers would only recoup around a third of their losses. Sky Mavis is giving its consumers a total refund of $216.5 million.

Sky Mavis claims that user funds are "fully backed 1:1 by the new bridge," but it hasn't yet recovered a significant amount of the money that was stolen from the Ronin network, as per The Verge. The company claims that Ronin is currently down 71,600 ETH (or about $85.8 million) and 25.5 million USDC ($25.5 million), after pooling funds from the Sky Mavis team's founding members and getting $150 million in capital from a number of companies, including Binance. According to Sky Mavis, it is fully repaying these liabilities.

The Verge noted that in a postmortem, Sky Mavis cited the absence of a tracking system to keep track of significant outflows as well as a spear-phishing attempt that compromised the account of an employee who no longer works for the company.

The US Treasury Department launched sanctions against the wallet address holding the stolen cryptocurrency after conducting an investigation and attributing the theft to the North Korean hacking outfit Lazarus. The bridge was supposed to reopen by the end of April, but Sky Mavis later changed its reopening date because it "will secure billions of dollars in assets" and said "this is not a process we can afford to rush."