The attack has taken place through the Axie Infinity video game, a viral phenomenon in the world of cryptocurrencies.
This week the biggest theft in the history of cryptocurrencies has taken place. Nearly 615 million dollars have disappeared in the Axie Infinity video game, known as the `Pokemon` of the NFTs, which has long become a viral phenomenon in the world of cryptocurrencies.
In case you’re about to head to your Binance trading bot to trade, make sure to first check out this incredible story.
What is Axie Infinity
It is a video game developed by the Vietnamese firm SkyMavis in which players can collect and create NFTs, which are represented as digital pets called Axies.
The objective is to breed these animals so that they can then face and fight each other, which encourages competition between users.
The game has a “play-to-earn” model, which allows you to play to earn money. In this way, it has become not only an online phenomenon, but also an economic success after being crowned as the first of its kind to exceed 4 billion dollars in sales.
Axie Infinity works through its own cryptocurrency and makes use of the Ronin network, a blockchain created in February 2021 by the video game’s developer company.
The arrival of Ronin solved one of the most important problems faced by the Ethereum network: the high cost of commissions for transactions with ETH.
The latter made its application to the game unfeasible. The creators of SkyMavis then opted for the creation of a new blockchain connected to Ethereum’s through a bridge, a contract that allows the transfer of tokens (unit of value issued by a private entity) between two different chains.
Development of Cryptocurrency Theft
The managers of the Ronin network announced shortly after the events took place that the bridge between the two chains had been intervened by the action of a hacker and 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC had disappeared.
The total value of the sum of both currencies brings the theft figures up to 615 million dollars. Unlike what has happened on other occasions, it is unknown what the real intentions of the perpetrator may be.
There may be the possibility, as happened with Poly Network in 2021, that the money is returned, being a strategy for the company to learn. It is currently known which wallet the cryptocurrencies are in; however, it would be an arduous task to locate the owner.
The hacker managed to take control of most of the nodes controlling the blockchain between Etherum and Ronin, in addition to five of the nine validators that approve transactions on the latter network.
Consequences for the SkyMavis Company
The creators of Ronin and Axie Infinity have promised to strengthen the operation of the network to prevent similar thefts in the future. However, after what happened, the platform has continued to fall in value.
This phenomenon applies not only to the video game, but also to the NFTs themselves, which have seen their value reduced considerably.
The Biggest Cryptocurrency Thefts in History
Security continues to be a problem in the crypto universe and multiple threats remain latent, despite the fact that attacks are no longer a common occurrence, precisely due to the development of cybersecurity tools.
Throughout the brief history of the metaverse, there have been many hackers who have tried to benefit from the large amounts of money and information that are mobilized in this web environment.
Poly Network, Coincheck, Mt.Gox, and Wormhole are the platforms that have starred in the biggest cryptocurrency thefts. The first of these was barely known until August 2021 when it reported the disappearance of cryptocurrencies valued at $610 million.
Immediately after the theft, the hacker revealed that he did not want the company’s money, but only did it to “expose its vulnerabilities”, to proceed, later, to return the stolen money.
In the case of Coincheck, the theft amounted to 530 million dollars, while Mt.Gox suffered one of the biggest scandals in the metaverse after losing 475 million dollars to a hacker in 2014.
Much more recent was the attack on Wormhole, which last February experienced the theft of 320 million dollars, which was recovered by the company Jump Trading a few days later.
Conclusion
The truth is that about a decade ago, no one could have predicted what cryptocurrencies would become. Today, although the market is not at its peak as it was last year, it is still one of the most promising futures in the financial world.
Obviously, the big theft had a huge impact on the financial world and has also opened the eyes of many investors who previously were not too concerned about their privacy.
It should also be noted that many of these investors make their trades automatically, which requires an excellent trading bot.
Luckily, the current market is ablaze with reliable trading bots, but they are not always easy to find. That’s why we recommend that you get advice from automatic trading experts and only trust exchange platforms and bots that are 100% safe.
This way you can avoid being the next victim of crypto thieves – while automatically making the money and trades that you’ve always wanted in the vast universe of cryptocurrencies in 2022.