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Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge Finally Back After $625M Exploit and 3 Month Layoff
Summary: Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge has finally restarted after three months of being out of commission after an extremely advanced exploit that saw roughly $625 million worth of cryptocurrencies stolen, according to a blog post Tuesday. “We are thrilled to report that after three audits, the Ronin Bridge is officially open and ready for use,” the ...
Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge has finally restarted after three months of being out of commission after an extremely advanced exploit that saw roughly $625 million worth of cryptocurrencies stolen, according to a blog post Tuesday.
“We are thrilled to report that after three audits, the Ronin Bridge is officially open and ready for use,” the blog post proclaimed.
Axie Infinity also took to Twitter to announce their exciting news.
After successfully conducting an internal audit and two external audits from Verichains and Certik, the bridge was officially restarted, allowing users to make deposits and withdrawals to and from the Ronin (RON) network.
In addition, the blog post emphasized that user funds are fully backed 1:1 by the new bridge and all users have been made whole. The new bridge includes a circuit breaker as a contingency plan which boosts its security by halting large suspicious withdrawals.
Bridges are protocols which allow an exchange of information, cryptocurrency or assets like non-fungible tokens (NFTs) from one blockchain to another. In the case of the Ronin Bridge, it was a bridge between the Ethereum and the Ronin blockchains. If no bridge is in place, those blockchains wouldn’t be able to communicate with each other.
Axie Infinity is an NFT based online video game developed by Sky Mavis, where players collect and mint NFTs in the form of digital pets known as Axies. It is very similar to Pokémon.
In March, Axie Infinity was the victim of one of the largest attacks in crypto history for a staggering $625 million, consisting of 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5 million USDC. At the time Ethereum was worth about $3,300 per coin, according to Bitpush Terminal data, which is substantially higher than its current value of $1,190. The price of USDC, the second-largest stablecoin by market cap, has remained virtually the same at its peg of $1.
The attacker “used hacked private keys in order to forge fake withdrawals” from the Ronin bridge across two transactions, reported by a blog post at that time.
At the time of the attack, Axie’s native tokens, AXS, were trading at about $67. Now they are valued at $15.50 at the time of writing. While the hack was certainly part of their token’s decline, the overall market has been in a downward spiral, with Three Arrows Capital and Celsuis on the verge of bankruptcy, bailouts taking place at a rapid rate and coins crashing to virtually zero.
Author: Tyler Irvin
Tags: Axie Infinity,AXS,Ronin Bridge
Link: Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge Finally Back After $625M Exploit and 3 Month Layoff [Copy]