Ronin Bridge, an Ethereum sidechain built for the popular play-to-earn non-fungible token game Axie Infinity, has been hacked. The hack caused 3,996 Ethereum (ETH) worth approximately $9.33 million to be lost.

Players use the Ronin Bridge to transfer assets between the Ronin chain and the Ethereum network.

Ronin Bridge Comprised For $9 Million

On-chain detective PeckShield confirmed the breach, with Axie Infinity co-founder and chair Aleksander Leonard Larsen indicating halted operations. This pause paves the way for investigations, with reports from whitehats about a potential Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) exploit.

“The Ronin Network Bridge has been paused while we investigate a report from whitehats about a potential MEV exploit. We will follow up with more information shortly. The bridge currently secures over $850 million which is safe,” Leonard Larsen indicated.

Read more: Crypto Project Security: A Guide to Early Threat Detection

Whitehat hackers in the crypto space are often individuals or organizations who use their cybersecurity skills and knowledge for ethical purposes. These include identifying vulnerabilities in blockchain platforms, smart contracts, and crypto wallets to help improve their security.

Nevertheless, this is not the first incident of the Ronin Bridge’s hacking.

In 2022, the Ethereum sidechain also suffered a $600 million attack after hackers accessed private keys to its validator nodes. This resulted in the compromise of five validator nodes, the threshold requisite for approving a transaction.

At the time, project developers raised $150 million to reimburse affected users. In the aftermath, they also closed the Ronin Bridge before reopening it months later. 

“Axie/Ronin is a cursed project I swear -Ronin bridge $600 million hack March 2022 -Axie/Ronin co-founder $9.7 million hack February 2024 -Now this bridge incident,” ZachXBT remarked.

The series of attacks has raised questions, given the network’s governance. For starters, the Ronin Bridge is not decentralized, with the team being the only validators and bridge to their own chain. The network did not immediately respond to BeInCrypto’s request for comment.

Despite the attack, Axie Infinity (AXS) token is up 9%, participating in the broader market recovery.

Lockridge Okoth is a journalist at BeInCrypto, focusing on prominent industry companies such as Coinbase, Binance, and Tether. He covers a wide range of topics, including regulatory developments in decentralized finance (DeFi), decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePIN), real-world assets (RWA), GameFi, and cryptocurrencies. Previously, Lockridge conducted market analysis and technical assessments of digital assets, including Bitcoin and altcoins such as Arbitrum, Polkadot, and...