Axie Infinity Tokens AXS, SLP Reeling After $622M Ronin Hack

A day after Sky Mavis disclosed that a hacker stole 173,600 ETH worth $622 million from the Ronin sidechain, the Axie Infinity Shards (AXS) and Smooth Love Potion (SLP) tokens are still reeling.

Sky Mavis is the developer team behind the popular play-to-earn crypto game Axie Infinity. The Ronin network is a sidechain that bridges the game to the main Ethereum network, allowing players to transfer funds in and out of it.

As of Wednesday morning, AXS is down 7.3% and SLP is down 5.1% over the last 24 hours, according to data pulled from CoinMarketCap. 

The AXS token is used to participate in the game and also serves as its governance token, while the SLP is awarded to players for completing quests or beating an opponent. 

The Axie Infinity hack

Axie Infinity co-founder and chief operating officer Aleksander Larsen said in a Twitter thread that he’s been working with the Sky Mavis board and cybersecurity experts since yesterday to rule out the possibility of any lingering threats to the Ronin network.

“This was a social engineering attack combined with human error from December 2021,” he wrote. “Sky Mavis tech is solid and we will be adding several new validators to the Ronin Network shortly to further decentralize the network.” 

The hack was first reported yesterday by Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis, who said the attacker used “hacked private keys” to make fraudulent transactions last week.  Sky Mavis and the company’s founders have been heavily criticized for not catching the hack sooner and not being decentralized enough to prevent a large exploit in the first place.

Larsen said that the stolen funds would be recovered or reimbursed.