Ronin Network, the blockchain powering Axie Infinity, narrowly escaped disaster this week. A security breach led to a $9.8 million Ether (ETH) loss. But plot twist – it wasn't a hack.
Initial panic gave way to relief. A white hat hacker accidentally triggered the exploit. They've now returned the funds.
PeckShield first flagged the incident on August 6. They spotted unusual activity involving a maximal extractable value (MEV) bot.
MEV bots hunt for arbitrage opportunities in decentralized finance (DeFi). They're common, but this one hit the jackpot.
The bot, dubbed "0x4ab", snagged 3.9 ETH tokens. It then moved them to a wallet called "beaver build".
Ronin Network confirmed the withdrawal. About 4,000 ETH and 2 million USDC vanished. That's the max for one transaction.
The Axie Infinity team wasn't freaking out. They thanked the hacker for safeguarding user funds. A chat followed.
Result? All ETH returned. USDC's on its way back too.
In a twist that would make even the most seasoned crypto veterans raise an eyebrow, it seems the MEV bot accidentally front-ran an attack. Talk about being in the right place at the wrong time – or was it the wrong place at the right time? Either way, when the dust settled, over $10 million worth of ETH was safely back in Ronin's coffers.
Etherscan data shows the MEV bot returned 3,991 ETH. They kept 5 ETH. Not bad for a day's work.
Ronin's not stingy. They're giving the bot owner a $500K reward. Nice chunk of change for an oopsie.
The team's digging into what went wrong. A recent bridge upgrade messed up. It botched the vote threshold for withdrawals.
They're scrambling to fix it. Expect intense audits before the next upgrade.
This isn't Ronin's first rodeo. Last year, they lost over $600 million in a massive hack.
The crypto world's on edge. Hacks are up 42% from last year. July was brutal – $266 million stolen in 16 incidents.
Ronin's close call is a wake-up call. Security's still a wild west in crypto. But sometimes, the good guys win.