Ronin Network bridge halted over alleged $9.8m hack

Axie Infinity’s Ronin Network has halted its bridge following some suspicious transactions reported by white hats on Tuesday.

Peckshield first reported a suspicious transfer of 3,996 ETH, worth $9.8 million at the time of writing, from the bridge to an MEV bot at around 9:37 UTC. Another $2 million in USDC was also swapped from the bridge at 10:11 UTC before the team eventually paused the bridge four minutes later.

#PeckShieldAlert Another suspicious txs (w/ $2M) pic.twitter.com/azrh4grUek

— PeckShieldAlert (@PeckShieldAlert) August 6, 2024

Ronin’s bridge paused over a suspected hack

Axie Infinity’s co-founder, Aleksander Larsen, confirmed the incident on X, noting they are currently investigating the reports.

“The Ronin Network bridge has been paused while we investigate a report from whitehats about a potential MEV exploit,” said Larsen, who goes by “Psycheout” on X. “We will follow up with more information shortly.”

With the bridge still paused, Larsen assured that the remaining funds are safe. “The bridge currently secures over $850M, which is safe,” he posted.

The news today comes about six months after a “whale wallet” belonging to Axie Infinity’s co-founder Jeff “Jihoz” Zirlin was compromised over the Ronin Bridge. The hacker made away with 3,248 ETH, worth over $9.7 million at the time. 

White hats are likely involved

The root cause of today’s incident has not been confirmed. However, many people speculate that white hats were behind the suspected transactions, which entails that the funds are not completely lost.

Ronin bridge just got paused, white hats involved

Ronin just got saved once again

This is why your bags shouldn’t be loyal to any one Crypto no matter how bullish you are

Anything can happen! https://t.co/BqoCxlu32O

— Jesus Martinez (@JesusMartinez) August 6, 2024

Meanwhile, Ronin Network’s token was barely impacted by the news. RON was trading at $1.39, up 10% in the last 24 hours, according to CoinGecko. Axie Infinity (AXS) also increased by 11.88% at the time of writing.

Ronin’s bridge was previously exploited for $625 million in March 2022. At the time, it was one of the largest exploit cases in crypto history. Subsequent findings by the U.S. Treasury Department showed that the North Korean hacking group Lazarus Group was behind the attack.