Sky Mavis, the creators of Axie Infinity have updated that they would reimburse the impacted users by tapping into their own balance sheet funds and through $150 million collectively raised by its investors, led by the Binance crypto exchange.
Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world (by daily trading volume) is leading a combined investors’ contribution to bail out victims of the recent $625 million Axie Infinity heist. This was confirmed by Sky Mavis, the creator of the game, in a recent press interview.
The Vietnamese company that runs Axie Infinity game and the Ronin blockchain atop which the game runs, informed a couple of weeks ago that it was hit by one of the biggest crypto thefts recorded till date, rendering users unable to withdraw their funds from the game.
Sky Mavis updated that it would reimburse the stolen funds through a $150 million contribution raised by its investors, including Binance and the well-known venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. The remaining money will be returned from its own balance sheet.
Assuring people who are unable to withdraw their money, Trung Nguyen, CEO, Sky Mavis, said, “Sky Mavis is committed to reimbursing all of our users’ lost funds and implementing rigorous internal security measures to prevent future attacks.”
Ronin to open only after security upgrade
Sky Mavis further updated that the Ronin blockchain bridge which got hacked, and allows users to seamlessly transfer funds to and from the game, will reopen only after undergoing audits and a security upgrade, which may take many weeks.
Changpeng Zhao, CEO, Binance emphasized, “We strongly believe Sky Mavis will bring a lot of value and growth for the larger industry and we believe it’s necessary to support them as they work hard to resolve the recent incident.” No figure has been revealed regarding Binance’s actual contribution towards the bailout package
Axie Infinity posted a blog on its website in which it admitted that the team may have made some compromises while racing for mainstream adoption, thus making them vulnerable to this type of attack. It reassured everyone that they’ve learnt from this lesson the hard way.
