By Shelly Melancon (Switzerland)
The cross-bridge chain Ronin Network is the protocol that powers the Axie Infinity Blockchain gaming platform and has been the subject of a large-scale hack a couple of days ago.
Following the heist, available data shows that about 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC, worth $600 million and above, have been moved by the hacker in what was described as the largest crypto theft in the industry’s history.
In the aftermath of the Ronin system attack, the stolen assets have found their way through the various exchange wallets, Huobi, FTX, and Crypto.com, and both have pledged to help trace the funds after passing through their platforms undetected.
However, the parent company of Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis, has already begun compensating the participants who have lost their funds to the hack.
Moving Funds Without Trace
It has been more than a month since the exploit; the hacker is still moving the funds seamlessly from one wallet to another without the least worry about being detected. It was reported that the exploiter cashed in 28,164 ETH out of the 173,000 ETH stolen from the Ronin Bridge. The stolen ETH has a current market value of $86,128,384,73.
Initially, the attacker moved over 2000 ETH worth $6 million in the past three weeks, and the hackers appeared to be moving the proceeds of the exploit again.
As reported by EtherScan, the Ronin Bridge hacker has transferred another stash of Ethereum, which is estimated to be 33,559, to another wallet address, and about 52,253 ETH is still in the custody of the hacker.
The interesting part of all this is that, as reported by multiple sources, the United States Treasury Department has linked the theft from the Ronin Network to the notorious North Korean hacker unit, the Lazarus Group. Some Ethereum addresses connected to the group have been added to the sanctions list.
Has the Sanction Failed?
The sanctioned Ethereum wallet has been added to the Specially Designated National Lists by the U.S. Treasury Department. This is done to stop the wallet from making any further transactions, but it seems the reverse is the case in this situation.
The lockdown has failed to stop any asset movement after the attack, which is ongoing even at the time of writing.
Sky Mavis has opted to reimburse the attack victims on March 23, and Binance has pledged to lead the $150 million funding phase alongside Animoca Brands, Dialectic, a16z, Paradigm, and Accel.
The damage has already been done, despite the commendable move to compensate users who lost their funds, and investors are also not sure whether they should continue with the affected platform.
At the moment, the event has left a negative outlook for the Axie Infinity platform.
The Ronin Bridge exploit event has led to more outflow of funds from the network than was expected, and this explains why others are being cautious about making a move to plunge in on the once cherished investors’ platform.
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