‘I feel very sad’

After Ronin’s blockchain was hacked, taken away 600 million USD, the community of Axie Infinity players became chaotic and insecure. Currently their assets have been frozen, stopped trading to wait for the problem to be fixed.

Axie player assets are frozen

In the Philippines and Vietnam markets, a series of posts on Twitter and Facebook focused on this event, from complaining about the freezing of bridges and exchanges, making it impossible for users to buy and sell items. in the game.

“I feel very sad because of what happened,” Joni Watanabe, a player of Axie shared on Twitter shortly after the hack took place. He suggested that the game’s developers should use the correct security protocol and asked the publisher to provide an explanation and fix this problem.

After the hack, the conversion of tokens earned from the game into other cryptocurrencies or fiat currencies was disabled. The hacker group attacked the Ronin bridge, causing 173,600 Ether and 25.5 million USDC.

Ronin Network is the most damaging hack in the history of the cryptocurrency market.

The Ronin Bridge is a software mechanism that converts AXS and SLP tokens players earn in Axie Infinity into Ether or USDC. After that, they can completely convert this digital currency to fiat.

Speaking to Zing, Mr. Van Quyen, Axie Infinity player, said that Ronin network is currently under maintenance after the hack, users cannot transact. Therefore, buying and selling SLP and AXS becomes difficult.

“Personally, I can’t trade AXS and SLP at the moment, so I find it quite inconvenient. As for the game, it’s fine. At the same time, the market is moving sideways, so it won’t affect anything,” Quyen said.

In the process of investigating the hack and fixing the security holes, the Ronin bridge will be temporarily closed. The company behind Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis is committed to refunding users involved in hacking. However, the developer has not given any other specific information.

“In a word, the bridge is the master bank of the Ronin network. And the hacker group stole all the ETH and USDC coins, which have not been backed up on any systems,” said Aleksander Leonard Larsen, CEO of Sky Mavis.

Although the developer did not disclose the specific number of players who dropped out of the game after the hack, data from DappRadar shows that transaction volume on Axie Marketplace has decreased by 34% in the last 24 hours and decreased by 24% in the past 7 days.

“This does not mean that the game will be removed. Users can still participate in playing Axie Infinity without registering transactions on the blockchain system,” said Pedro Herrera, data analyst at DappRadar confirm.

Players’ incomes are hit hard

Axie Infinity once promised to help low-income groups make a living by trading activities in the game. However, now that all the money they have accumulated has been stolen and left in the “virtual” world, this prospect is more blurred than ever.

“The venture capitalists aren’t the biggest losers,” said Catherine Flick, an associate professor of computer science at De Montfort University.

After the post announcing the hack on the project’s Twitter, many Axie Infinity players in the Philippines expressed frustration when the number of assets stored on Katana DEX is now disabled.

When accessing, users will receive a notice that the Katana trading platform is under maintenance.

“All my assets are stored on Katana. When will the new exchange return, will my funds be safe? If the publishing team can’t answer these questions, I’m afraid Axie Infinity will lose a lot of users,” commented Twitter user @FlyBearrr.

“My AXS and SLP tokens have all been hacked. How can you compensate for these losses? This exchange is too risky,” another user said.

According to Bloomberg, in October 2021, the number of active users of Axie Infinity reached 2.5 million, an increase of 1 million compared to 3 months ago. In which, the Philippines market accounts for 40% of the number of players.

Some players in the Philippines see Axie Infinity as the main source of family income. Therefore, 600 million USD stolen is too big a number. On the other hand, players in the Philippines, the game’s largest market, also face tax collection.

“As long as the problem on the Ronin Bridge is not fixed, the group of civilians who are obliged to take care of their families will still suffer a lot of losses after the hack. The impact on the portfolios of the ‘hardcore’ players is nothing compared to the consequences on the lives of this group of people,” Associate Professor Flick affirmed.

Dominic Lumabi (right) is playing Axie Infinity, earning extra income to support his family in Manila, Philippines. Photo: AFP-JIJI.

Sharing with Zing, Mr. Thai Van An, Axie Infinity player based in Hanoi, said that Katana, Sky Mavis’s decentralized exchange is currently not active, the staking function (locking coins to receive interest) SLP and WETH are still available. lock up. This makes it impossible for players to get WETH to buy Axie animals.

“All AXS, SLP and WETH are locked and no official payout date has been announced. This causes confusion for players. However, the price of the aforementioned digital currencies has not decreased deeply because users cannot withdraw money, “said Mr. An.

The Axie Infinity community thinks the hack will cause players to lose confidence in the game’s monetization potential. They complain when the development team does not ensure the interests of the community. Specifically, refunds on Ronin Bridge took too long compared to previous bridge attacks.

According to Mr. Van Quyen, the drop in price has not affected the previous investment too much because the prices of AXS and SLP have almost bottomed during the past time.

“I have been playing Axie for a long time, the price of cryptocurrencies has also gone down, so further reduction is not too serious. Hopefully the development team will improve the project’s supply and demand mechanism in the Axie Infinity: Origin update. According to my understanding, the project will have a completely new SLP burning mechanism to improve the price of this digital currency in the near future,” said Quyen.

User doubts developer

As an Axie Infinity player, Manh Hung (from Ho Chi Minh City) said deposit and withdrawal transactions through the Ronin network have been temporarily suspended. Therefore, he cannot add Ether or SLP to the game. On the other hand, after the hack, the selling price of the characters in this game dropped sharply. Because he could not trade, it was difficult for Mr. Hung to “catch the bottom” of Axie animals.

Participating in community groups to play Axie Infinity on social networks, Manh Hung also said that players are spreading a lot of “conspiracy theories”. Specifically, they believe that the theft is just a trick of the developer to attract public attention. On the other hand, someone said this was an excuse for the company to postpone the release date of the upcoming Axie Infinity: Origin game.

Axie Infinity: Origin is slated to release on April 7. Photo: AXS.

According to Sky Mavis co-founder, Aleksander Leonard Larsen, the cause of the theft 600 million USD is due to the form of non-technical attacks and errors from the human factor. He said Sky Mavis’s top priority at the moment is to ensure the safety and security of Ronin Bridge before opening the transaction portal.

But whatever the reason behind the theft of hundreds of millions of dollars, Hung decided to continue playing the game, while not changing the way he manages his cryptocurrency wallet. “I hope the developer will improve the security of the Ronin network,” said Aleksander Leonard Larsen.

(According to Zing)