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	"created_at": "2026-04-06T00:08:03.083605Z",
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	"title": "Ronin Network: What a $600m hack says about the state of crypto",
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	"plain_text": "Ronin Network: What a $600m hack says about the state of crypto\r\nBy By Joe Tidy\r\nPublished: 2022-03-30 · Archived: 2026-04-05 17:43:07 UTC\r\nGetty Images\r\nAxie Infinity is a popular game allowing players to earn through NFTs and cryptocurrency\r\nThousands, if not millions, of people could have lost money in the second largest crypto hack in history.\r\nRonin Network, a key platform powering the popular mobile game Axie Infinity, has had $615m (£467m) stolen.\r\nA 20-year-old from Wiltshire, Dan Rean, is one of those affected. He told the BBC: \"I have lost 0.15 Ethereum,\r\nabout $500. It's bad but I have friends in a worse position.\"\r\nJack Kenny is one of those friends, and said: \"I'm down about $10,000.\"\r\nThe 23-year-old from Ireland added: \"I don't think people fully understand the significance of this hack - $600m is\r\na very big portion of all the assets in this network.\"\r\nAnother man from the US east coast says he has lost $8,000, but adds there are people who may have lost their\r\n\"life savings\" after saving up digital coins from playing Axie Infinity.\r\nhttps://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60933174\r\nPage 1 of 5\n\nAxie Infinity\r\nPlayers fight in game with Axies\r\nIn the game, players fight cartoon pets called Axies to earn cryptocurrency.\r\nThe game is hugely popular with millions of players around the world hoping to win cryptocurrency and collect\r\nthe game's non-fungible tokens (NFTs).\r\nIts particularly big in the Philippines, where playing has become a full-time and potentially lucrative job.\r\nThe real victims of mass crypto-hacks\r\nCrypto-exchange loses $150m to hackers\r\nRonin Network, which is also owned by Vietnamese parent company Sky Mavis, allows players to exchange the\r\ndigital coins they earn in Axie Infinity with other cryptocurrencies like Ethereum.\r\nIt says a hacker transferred $540m worth of cryptocurrency to themselves six days ago, but the company only\r\nnoticed on Tuesday when a customer was unable to withdraw their funds.\r\nThe stolen stash has since risen in value with the price of cryptocurrencies to be worth about $615m.\r\nIt's just the latest in a string of mass crypto heists in the last year totalling well over $2bn.\r\nThe sequence of events around the hack tells us a lot about the perils of cryptocurrency and decentralised finance.\r\nWill customers get their money back?\r\nRonin Network says it is \"working with law enforcement officials, forensic cryptographers, and our investors to\r\nmake sure all funds are recovered or reimbursed\".\r\nInitially, it put out one statement on its substack - a newsletter service - and taken its website offline.\r\nhttps://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60933174\r\nPage 2 of 5\n\nIt has also disabled comments on its company posts on social media.\r\nLater the company replied to the BBC's requests for comment saying it was \"committed\" to reimbursing\r\ncustomers but would not give a guarantee.\r\n\"I've not tried customer support because I know it'll be useless,\" says Dan.\r\n\"I just have to wait to hear from them if and when it'll be fixed, and I can hopefully get my Ethereum out. Crypto\r\ncompanies don't really work in the same way as regular companies,\" Dan explains sympathetically.\r\nRetuers\r\n73,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC were stolen from the Ronin bridge in two transactions\r\nRonin Network has not yet told customers what's happening with their funds or when they will get their money\r\nback.\r\nIn most cases of mass crypto hacks, customers are reimbursed in some way, but it can take months or years.\r\nCryptocurrency writer David Canellis, from Protos, says direct communication with cryptocurrency companies is\r\nnotoriously poor.\r\n\"When you're dealing with entities that are handling more than half a billion dollars you'd expect a little bit more\r\navenues and openness to communication - especially when there has been such a lapse in security around this\r\nhack.\r\n\"But then again, one primary tenet of the ecosystem is that anyone at all can launch their own projects, and there\r\nshould be no barriers to this.\"\r\nHow it happened\r\nhttps://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60933174\r\nPage 3 of 5\n\nRonin Network says that the hack started in November 2021, when Axie Infinity's user base swelled to an\r\nunsustainable size.\r\nThe company said the influx of players caused \"immense user load\", which forced it to loosen security procedures\r\nto cope with the increased demand.\r\nIt says that things calmed down in December, but that it forgot to retighten its security, and the hackers took\r\nadvantage of the backdoor left open.\r\nEconomist and author Frances Coppola says: \"This is pretty typical of crypto companies.\r\n\"We've seen so many hacks and exploits caused by - to be blunt - frank carelessness and lack of concern for the\r\nsafety of people's funds.\r\n\"Crypto companies are sometimes so anxious to make 'loadsamoney', or simply accommodate high demand, that\r\nthey put out badly designed and tested code, compromise security, or place too much reliance on infrastructure.\"\r\nThe five largest-ever cryptocurrency hacks\r\nFigures from cryptocurrency analysis company Elliptic, based on the dollar value at time of hack:\r\n$325m - Wormhole, February 2022\r\n$470m - Mt Gox, February 2014.\r\n$532m - Coincheck, January 2018\r\n$540m - Ronin Bridge, March 2022.\r\n$611m - Poly Network, August 2021\r\nWhy does this keep happening?\r\nExperts say cryptocurrency is increasingly being seen as low hanging fruit by hackers.\r\nCryptocurrency companies are \"huge honeypots for hackers\", says Tom Robinson, of Elliptic.\r\n\"Crypto transactions are irreversible, so if a hacker can get their hands on it, it's very difficult for anyone to\r\nretrieve it,\" he says.\r\nMr Robinson said it is also attractive because huge pay days are possible without the extra hassle of cybercrime\r\nlike ransomware, where criminals have to negotiate with hacked companies.\r\nIt's not known who is behind this latest hack, but it is not necessarily cyber-criminals out to make money for\r\nthemselves. For example, state-sponsored hackers have been identified as the culprits behind some crypto heists.\r\nAccording to cryptocurrency researchers at Chainalysis, North Korean hackers stole almost $400m (£291m) worth\r\nof digital assets in at least seven attacks on cryptocurrency platforms last year.\r\nAre crypto-currencies the future of money?\r\nhttps://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60933174\r\nPage 4 of 5\n\nSource: https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60933174\r\nhttps://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60933174\r\nPage 5 of 5",
	"extraction_quality": 1,
	"language": "EN",
	"sources": [
		"MITRE"
	],
	"references": [
		"https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-60933174"
	],
	"report_names": [
		"technology-60933174"
	],
	"threat_actors": [],
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