Co-founder of Axie Infinity suffers a $9.7M loss in a wallet breach involving 3,248 ETH.

Two of Jeff “Jihoz” Zirlin’s crypto wallet addresses, belonging to the co-founder of Axie Infinity and Ronin Network, were recently hacked. The hacker managed to steal approximately $9.7 million worth of Ether (ETH) and transferred it through Tornado Cash.
On February 23, blockchain investigator PeckShield discovered a compromise in a “whale wallet” through the Ronin Bridge. They reported that the hacker had successfully taken 3,248 ETH. In response, Aleksander Larsen, co-founder of Ronin Network, stated that the Ronin Bridge had strong security measures in place and suspected that it was a wallet hack instead.
Larsen also mentioned that the Ronin Bridge had undergone an audit and had a feature that would pause transactions if an unusually large withdrawal was detected. Shortly after, Zirlin confirmed that two of his personal wallets had indeed been hacked. He clarified that the attack was not a result of vulnerabilities within the Ronin chain or Sky Mavis operations. In his own words:
“I confirm that two of my personal wallets were hacked. This is not due to any vulnerability in the Ronin chain or Sky Mavis’ operations.”
According to PeckShield, the hack was caused by a compromise of the wallets, allowing the hacker to transfer funds without authorization. However, no specific details were provided regarding the events that led to the hack. Zirlin’s statement implies that the private keys of his wallets were leaked, granting unauthorized access to his personal crypto wallets.
PeckShield’s investigation of the compromised wallets from Ronin Bridge v2 revealed that the stolen 3,248 ETH was initially split and transferred to three different wallets. Eventually, the funds were funneled into Tornado Cash, a service commonly used by hackers to make the ownership and traceability of the funds anonymous.
In contrast to the hacker who targeted Axie Infinity’s Jihoz, the hacker who stole from Chris Larsen’s personal wallet did not use crypto mixing services or decentralized exchanges to conceal their identity. Consequently, Binance was able to track some of the funds and prevent the hacker from accessing them.