Sky Mavis, the company responsible for the widely popular play-to-earn game Axie Infinity, has successfully recovered $5.7 million with the help of Norwegian authorities following the infamous Ronin Bridge incident of 2022.
On June 7, Sky Mavis revealed that Norway’s Økokrim, the central unit dedicated to combating economic and environmental crimes, had frozen and returned the $5.7 million in funds related to the Ronin Bridge hack. This achievement was made possible through the collaborative efforts of law enforcement agencies, legal professionals, accountants, and blockchain forensic experts like Chainalysis.
The blockchain gaming company publicly expressed their gratitude to the Norwegian government and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation for their role in tracking down the funds and securing the assets. A portion of the recovered funds will go back to the Axie Infinity treasury, while some will be used to cover the expenses incurred during the recovery process.
In addition to the $5.7 million already recovered, law enforcement has also frozen an extra $40 million in digital assets. Sky Mavis noted that the process of retrieving these assets will be time-consuming, and they currently do not have a set timeline for their release.
The Ronin Bridge hack, which occurred on March 29, 2022, remains one of the most costly security breaches in the cryptocurrency realm. The exploit resulted in the theft of 173,600 Ether (ETH) and 25.5 million USD Coin (USDC) through unauthorized transactions using compromised private keys, totaling $612 million at the time.
Sky Mavis conducted a funding round led by Binance in April 2022, raising $150 million to reimburse affected users. Subsequently, they have strengthened the security of the Ronin blockchain by collaborating with additional validators, including Google Cloud.
Despite the setback caused by the incident, Ronin continues to be a prominent blockchain for nonfungible tokens (NFTs), currently ranking third in terms of all-time NFT sales after Solana and Ethereum.
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