Sky Mavis claimed that founders transferred tokens to allow more “flexibility” in its response to the Ethereum sidechain attack.
In brief
- Axie
Infinity’s Ronin network—an Ethereum sidechain—was hacked in March,
with $622 million worth of assets stolen as of the time of disclosure. - Sky
Mavis CEO Trung Nguyen transferred $3 million worth of tokens just
before the hack was disclosed, but he says today that claims of insider
trading "are baseless and false."
Top crypto game Axie Infinity weathered one of the all-time largest DeFi hacks in March when the bridge connecting its Ronin network sidechain to Ethereum was hacked for $622 million worth of cryptocurrency.
Now the CEO of the studio behind Axie has admitted that he moved
millions of dollars’ worth of tokens off of Ronin before the hack was
disclosed.
That’s according to a report today from Bloomberg,
which analyzed blockchain data to discover that a crypto wallet
controlled by Sky Mavis CEO and co-founder Trung Nguyen transferred
about $3 million worth of the game’s AXS governance token from the Ronin
network to crypto exchange Binance.
Nguyen’s
token transfer occurred just three hours before Sky Mavis disclosed the
Ronin network hack, nearly a full week after the attack occurred, and
closed off access to the network until late June. Sky Mavis representative Kalie Moore confirmed the transaction to Bloomberg after the publication shared its analysis with the firm.
“At
the time, we (Sky Mavis) understood that our position and options would
be better the more AXS we had on Binance,” she said. “This would give
us the flexibility to pursue different options for securing the
loans/capital required.”
13 Biggest DeFi Hacks and Heists
Decentralized
finance (DeFi) refers to blockchain applications that cut out middlemen
from financial products and services like loans, savings, and swaps.
While DeFi comes with high rewards, i...
Moore
added that funds were transferred from Nguyen’s own wallet so that AXS
short sellers “would not be able to front-run the news,” and suggested
that accusations of other motives regarding the nature of the transfer
would be “baseless.”
The
Ronin network hack took place on March 23, but it wasn’t discovered for
days. It was ultimately disclosed on March 29. The attacker stole
173,600 Wrapped Ethereum (WETH) and 25.5 million USDC stablecoins, which were collectively worth about $622 million at the time of disclosure, but $552 million when the attack took place.
Ultimately,
the attackers drained the funds via the bridge that connects Ronin to
the Ethereum mainnet, using hacked private keys to gain control of five
of the network’s nine total validators to sign fraudulent transactions
and transfer the funds.
source link : https://decrypt.co/106186/axie-infinity-ceo-moved-3m-in-tokens-before-622m-hack-disclosure-report
