According to Ronin, hackers took over $500 million in cryptocurrencies in a record-breaking theft.

Anonymous hackers utilized stolen private keys, according to Ronin, the blockchain initiative that powers the popular online game Axie Infinity.

Ronin, a blockchain project, announced on Tuesday that hackers took cryptocurrencies worth about $615 million from its systems in what would be one of the most significant cryptocurrency heists ever.

According to the project, hackers stole 173,600 ether tokens and 25.5 million USD currency tokens on March 23. The stolen money is now worth $615 million at current exchange rates, although they were worth $540 million at the incident.

According to blockchain analysis firm Elliptic, this is the second-largest crypto heist.

According to the NFT market tracker CryptoSlam, Ronin is used to power the popular online game Axie Infinity, which employs non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and has the most extensive NFT collection by all-time sales volume.

In a blog post, Ronin stated that the hacker obtained private keys — the passwords required to access crypto money – and used them to steal the assets.

Ronin stated that the team found the breach on Tuesday. "We are working directly with different government authorities to ensure the culprits are brought to justice," it said, adding that it was negotiating with Axie Infinity to avoid losing customers' payments.

According to the company, Ronin users cannot withdraw or deposit funds on the network.

Ronin didn't initially respond to a Twitter comment request. It stated that it collaborated with the leading blockchain tracker Chainalysis to track down the stolen cash. According to Ronin, most of the funds are still in the hacker's digital wallet.

Hacks have long plagued crypto platforms.

Jump Trading's cryptocurrency subsidiary said last month that it had returned more than $320 million to crypto platform Wormhole following one of the most significant crypto heists on record.

Last August, the hackers behind what was possibly the most extensive digital coin robbery in history returned almost all of the $610 million-plus they took from the DeFi site Poly Network.

Hackers stole digital tokens worth $530 million from Tokyo-based platform Coincheck in 2018. Another Japanese exchange, Mt Gox, went bankrupt in 2014 after hackers stole half a billion dollars in cryptocurrency.

Sky Mavis, the Singapore-based gaming firm that owns Axie Infinity, is behind Ronin. Sky Mavis' webpage does not have contact information. It did not reply promptly to a comment request submitted over Linkedin.

Source: FoxBusiness
Source: TheGuardian
Source: BusinessInsurance

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