Axie Infinity crypto hacked, over $600 million stolen.

olepi

Hackers broke into the crypto system of the Axie Infinity game and stole 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC, a cryptocurrency linked to the U.S. dollar, which in total is worth around $625 million.

Sky Mavis COO Aleksander Larsen told Bloomberg he was "fully committed" to reimbursing players who have lost funds and are working on a solution.

TheDalaiBomba

Welcome to the new normal; same as the old normal.

olepi

TheDalaiBomba said:

Welcome to the new normal; same as the old normal.

Usually hackers just dupe some items or in-game currency. But now, with the merger of gaming with real money via crypto, hacking and exploits have a new meaning.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

TheDalaiBomba

olepi said:

TheDalaiBomba said:

Welcome to the new normal; same as the old normal.

Usually hackers just dupe some items or in-game currency. But now, with the merger of gaming with real money via crypto, hacking and exploits have a new meaning.

True; my comment was primarily how using this awesome new forn of currency isn't the panacea some think it will be.

The same old currency problems will creep up, such as hacks and fraud, even if the details of the problems change.

harken33

Wow! That's pretty mind blowing! They used to hack and get an email address, a login with maybe a ccard if they were lucky. Now hundreds of millions.

"The company doesn't suspect  insider involvement in the heist". I have to admit that's the first thing i thought of.

Slapshot1188

olepi said:

Hackers broke into the crypto system of the Axie Infinity game and stole 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5M USDC, a cryptocurrency linked to the U.S. dollar, which in total is worth around $625 million.

Sky Mavis COO Aleksander Larsen told Bloomberg he was "fully committed" to reimbursing players who have lost funds and are working on a solution.

@bcbully

Dude... THIS is just one reason why you don't want to mix your gaming hobby with your livelihood.
 

Iselin

This thread has a conspicuous absence of crypto apologists. Where have they gone?

Dibdabs

Wargfoot said:

Remember kids, crypto is more secure than your bank.

Yep, so the gullible rubes were told and they actually fell for it.  

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

maskedweasel

Torval said:

Iselin said:

This thread has a conspicuous absence of crypto apologists. Where have they gone?

They're all checking their wallets and assets to make sure they haven't been cleaned out?

This is just one of several massive crypto theft events over the last couple of years. These people are dealing with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars and seem clueless on how to run a large financial entity and keep it secure. Some of the most competent companies in the world with massive resources struggle to maintain security integrity. Do these people have a clue or are too busying "HODL" their "diamond hands" to their crypto and stocks.

Not really. 

This is what happens when you hold all your money in custodial wallets. Ronin is non custodial, but they didn't hack the wallets themselves.

The issue wasn't about people having their personal wallets cleaned out, mostly Ronin was hacked to move funds that were transferred in as deposits to buy axies, so generally, you'd imagine people would have noticed immediately when funds didn't show up within the account after funding right away.  

But it seems as though the "treasury" on Sky Mavis' end was also hacked, so that's their money, mostly profits or operating costs. Sky Mavis doesn't pay out to players, players pay out to players, sky mavis is just an intermediary. 

These kind of transactions are very wild-westlike. 

It's almost like a bank robbery happening every 6 months, where someone finds a flaw to exploit. Unfortunately this is all part of the process in new technologies. It never pays to be an early adopter... we know this already. Nobody should be playing these games as a livelihood, at best they should play them for fun and if they earn something on the side, congrats. 

TheDalaiBomba

Not hardware wallets though, right?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wired.com/story/cryptocurrency-hardware-wallets-can-get-hacked-too/amp

Sensai

coretex666 said:

Wargfoot said:

Remember kids, crypto is more secure than your bank.

It very much depends on the way of custody. If you hold your crypto in a self-hosted wallet where you do not rely on a 3rd party then it is very secure. More so then your cash in a bank which has the power to restrict you from transacting with your money. 

In this case, the people relied on a 3rd party which poses an obvious security risk.

What you wrote could be misleading to those who do not understand the details.

This is just as misleading.  Outside of a subpoena or regulatory order, when is a bank ever going to restrict you from making transactions?  You mean a clearing period for an official check or an unverified ACH?  As long as you aren't doing anything illegal,  you can transact freely. 

Kyleran

coretex666 said:

Sensai said:

coretex666 said:

Wargfoot said:

Remember kids, crypto is more secure than your bank.

It very much depends on the way of custody. If you hold your crypto in a self-hosted wallet where you do not rely on a 3rd party then it is very secure. More so then your cash in a bank which has the power to restrict you from transacting with your money. 

In this case, the people relied on a 3rd party which poses an obvious security risk.

What you wrote could be misleading to those who do not understand the details.

This is just as misleading.  Outside of a subpoena or regulatory order, when is a bank ever going to restrict you from making transactions?  You mean a clearing period for an official check or an unverified ACH?  As long as you aren't doing anything illegal,  you can transact freely. 

For instance, when you receive an unusually high amount of money in your bank account (i.e. significantly exceeding the regular traffic in your account), it is quite likely that the bank will freeze the money until you provide them with a proof of where the money came from. 

For instance, when I withdrew my proceedings from sales of crypto in 2017, the bank froze it until I provided them with evidence regarding the source of money I used to purchase that crypto. 

Often, the banks have thresholds above which they will always require a proof regarding source of money when it arrives in your account from a crypto exchange (e.g. my bank has this threshold at 15k EUR).

This is due to AML regulation.

I will let others judge if this makes my statement misleading or not. 

Banks don't hold your money because they want to, government regulators require it in order to stop criminal behaviors which most I believe support.

Right now the US government is working with the banks to bring Crypto under closer scrutiny and oversight.

So any advantage Crypto may have today probably isn't going to last.

Arglebargle

Hackers rob hucksters!  News at 11!

TheDalaiBomba

coretex666 said:

Sensai said:

coretex666 said:

Wargfoot said:

Remember kids, crypto is more secure than your bank.

It very much depends on the way of custody. If you hold your crypto in a self-hosted wallet where you do not rely on a 3rd party then it is very secure. More so then your cash in a bank which has the power to restrict you from transacting with your money. 

In this case, the people relied on a 3rd party which poses an obvious security risk.

What you wrote could be misleading to those who do not understand the details.

This is just as misleading.  Outside of a subpoena or regulatory order, when is a bank ever going to restrict you from making transactions?  You mean a clearing period for an official check or an unverified ACH?  As long as you aren't doing anything illegal,  you can transact freely. 

For instance, when you receive an unusually high amount of money in your bank account (i.e. significantly exceeding the regular traffic in your account), it is quite likely that the bank will freeze the money until you provide them with a proof of where the money came from. 

For instance, when I withdrew my proceedings from sales of crypto in 2017, the bank froze it until I provided them with evidence regarding the source of money I used to purchase that crypto. 

Often, the banks have thresholds above which they will always require a proof regarding source of money when it arrives in your account from a crypto exchange (e.g. my bank has this threshold at 15k EUR).

This is due to AML regulation.

I will let others judge if this makes my statement misleading or not. 

Nobody held the 80 grand I got deposited from the sell of my home until I provided documents to prove anything.

Sounds like your bank, not the banking industry.

We do all realize these regulations didn't just poof outta nowhere, right?  Somebody came up with a way to make transactions, some bad folks started using lack of oversight to do bad stuff, oversight happened.

The fact that anyone thinks this won't happen with crypto wallets blows my mind.

lahnmir

coretex666 said:

Sensai said:

coretex666 said:

Wargfoot said:

Remember kids, crypto is more secure than your bank.

It very much depends on the way of custody. If you hold your crypto in a self-hosted wallet where you do not rely on a 3rd party then it is very secure. More so then your cash in a bank which has the power to restrict you from transacting with your money. 

In this case, the people relied on a 3rd party which poses an obvious security risk.

What you wrote could be misleading to those who do not understand the details.

This is just as misleading.  Outside of a subpoena or regulatory order, when is a bank ever going to restrict you from making transactions?  You mean a clearing period for an official check or an unverified ACH?  As long as you aren't doing anything illegal,  you can transact freely. 

For instance, when you receive an unusually high amount of money in your bank account (i.e. significantly exceeding the regular traffic in your account), it is quite likely that the bank will freeze the money until you provide them with a proof of where the money came from. 

For instance, when I withdrew my proceedings from sales of crypto in 2017, the bank froze it until I provided them with evidence regarding the source of money I used to purchase that crypto. 

Often, the banks have thresholds above which they will always require a proof regarding source of money when it arrives in your account from a crypto exchange (e.g. my bank has this threshold at 15k EUR).

This is due to AML regulation.

I will let others judge if this makes my statement misleading or not. 

I think the whole idea that the ones and zero’s on your bank account are somehow more ‘real’ or safe then the ones and zero’s that make up the whole of crypto is laughable to begin with. It is just that our monetary and banking systems have had centuries to come up with support systems, safety measures etc. and still make stuff like what is in the Panama Papers possible. And people then laugh and point at the crypto world for not having better measures in place after being in existence for slightly over a decade.

The idea that you can simplify the whole of crypto in simple terms like digital money, bank replacement etc. is absurd to begin with, the whole discussion is flawed.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

TheDalaiBomba

lahnmir said:

coretex666 said:

Sensai said:

coretex666 said:

Wargfoot said:

Remember kids, crypto is more secure than your bank.

It very much depends on the way of custody. If you hold your crypto in a self-hosted wallet where you do not rely on a 3rd party then it is very secure. More so then your cash in a bank which has the power to restrict you from transacting with your money. 

In this case, the people relied on a 3rd party which poses an obvious security risk.

What you wrote could be misleading to those who do not understand the details.

This is just as misleading.  Outside of a subpoena or regulatory order, when is a bank ever going to restrict you from making transactions?  You mean a clearing period for an official check or an unverified ACH?  As long as you aren't doing anything illegal,  you can transact freely. 

For instance, when you receive an unusually high amount of money in your bank account (i.e. significantly exceeding the regular traffic in your account), it is quite likely that the bank will freeze the money until you provide them with a proof of where the money came from. 

For instance, when I withdrew my proceedings from sales of crypto in 2017, the bank froze it until I provided them with evidence regarding the source of money I used to purchase that crypto. 

Often, the banks have thresholds above which they will always require a proof regarding source of money when it arrives in your account from a crypto exchange (e.g. my bank has this threshold at 15k EUR).

This is due to AML regulation.

I will let others judge if this makes my statement misleading or not. 

I think the whole idea that the ones and zero’s on your bank account are somehow more ‘real’ or safe then the ones and zero’s that make up the whole of crypto is laughable to begin with. It is just that our monetary and banking systems have had centuries to come up with support systems, safety measures etc. and still make stuff like what is in the Panama Papers possible. And people then laugh and point at the crypto world for not having better measures in place after being in existence for slightly over a decade.

The idea that you can simplify the whole of crypto in simple terms like digital money, bank replacement etc. is absurd to begin with, the whole discussion is flawed.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

That wound was self-inflicted.  You can't throw a stone in a crypto conversation without hitting someone talking about how much more secure crypto is.

If proponents advertise something on a cornerstone like security, that thing best deliver on that front.

Sensai

lahnmir said:

coretex666 said:

Sensai said:

coretex666 said:

Wargfoot said:

Remember kids, crypto is more secure than your bank.

It very much depends on the way of custody. If you hold your crypto in a self-hosted wallet where you do not rely on a 3rd party then it is very secure. More so then your cash in a bank which has the power to restrict you from transacting with your money. 

In this case, the people relied on a 3rd party which poses an obvious security risk.

What you wrote could be misleading to those who do not understand the details.

This is just as misleading.  Outside of a subpoena or regulatory order, when is a bank ever going to restrict you from making transactions?  You mean a clearing period for an official check or an unverified ACH?  As long as you aren't doing anything illegal,  you can transact freely. 

For instance, when you receive an unusually high amount of money in your bank account (i.e. significantly exceeding the regular traffic in your account), it is quite likely that the bank will freeze the money until you provide them with a proof of where the money came from. 

For instance, when I withdrew my proceedings from sales of crypto in 2017, the bank froze it until I provided them with evidence regarding the source of money I used to purchase that crypto. 

Often, the banks have thresholds above which they will always require a proof regarding source of money when it arrives in your account from a crypto exchange (e.g. my bank has this threshold at 15k EUR).

This is due to AML regulation.

I will let others judge if this makes my statement misleading or not. 

I think the whole idea that the ones and zero’s on your bank account are somehow more ‘real’ or safe then the ones and zero’s that make up the whole of crypto is laughable to begin with. It is just that our monetary and banking systems have had centuries to come up with support systems, safety measures etc. and still make stuff like what is in the Panama Papers possible. And people then laugh and point at the crypto world for not having better measures in place after being in existence for slightly over a decade.

The idea that you can simplify the whole of crypto in simple terms like digital money, bank replacement etc. is absurd to begin with, the whole discussion is flawed.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Remind me, how much does the government insure crypto balances for?  While they are both digits stored electronically,  they are far more safeguards in place and transaction records for banking transactions.  It's not that one set of 1s and 0s is better than another, it's the system set up around them. Not to mention that most banks have a built in desire not to screw up your balances: they use those funds to make loans.  That's where the money is.  Deposits are a liability for banks and with all the limits on fees, revenue from Deposits isn't where it's at.

Superman0X

Iselin said:

This thread has a conspicuous absence of crypto apologists. Where have they gone?

I am sorry that you lost your money on crypto...
Feel better now?

TheDalaiBomba

coretex666 said:

Kyleran said:

coretex666 said:

Sensai said:

coretex666 said:

Wargfoot said:

Remember kids, crypto is more secure than your bank.

It very much depends on the way of custody. If you hold your crypto in a self-hosted wallet where you do not rely on a 3rd party then it is very secure. More so then your cash in a bank which has the power to restrict you from transacting with your money. 

In this case, the people relied on a 3rd party which poses an obvious security risk.

What you wrote could be misleading to those who do not understand the details.

This is just as misleading.  Outside of a subpoena or regulatory order, when is a bank ever going to restrict you from making transactions?  You mean a clearing period for an official check or an unverified ACH?  As long as you aren't doing anything illegal,  you can transact freely. 

For instance, when you receive an unusually high amount of money in your bank account (i.e. significantly exceeding the regular traffic in your account), it is quite likely that the bank will freeze the money until you provide them with a proof of where the money came from. 

For instance, when I withdrew my proceedings from sales of crypto in 2017, the bank froze it until I provided them with evidence regarding the source of money I used to purchase that crypto. 

Often, the banks have thresholds above which they will always require a proof regarding source of money when it arrives in your account from a crypto exchange (e.g. my bank has this threshold at 15k EUR).

This is due to AML regulation.

I will let others judge if this makes my statement misleading or not. 

Banks don't hold your money because they want to, government regulators require it in order to stop criminal behaviors which most I believe support.

Right now the US government is working with the banks to bring Crypto under closer scrutiny and oversight.

So any advantage Crypto may have today probably isn't going to last.

I do not advocate money laundering or illegal transactions. I am all for oversight and scrutiny. However, the fact that no one can in any way restrict you from legally transferring your lawfully obtained assets is a feature of crypto that no oversight or scrutiny takes away. It is or at least should be one of your basic rights.

Also, look at various examples of governments restricting their citizens from withdrawing money and taking it outside of country or talking about freezing people's accounts / assets (recently Ukraine, Canada, China). Is it still your money / assets then? Do you feel free in such a situation? It comes down to a subjective view. For me personally, the answer is no.


I promised myself I will restrain myself from contributing in crypto threads on this forum. They are usually a cocktail of confirmation bias, absolute lack of understanding of basic fundamental concepts, factual inaccuracies, etc.

These topics are much more complex than I can adequately cover in a gaming forum post. Also, nobody here is interested in facts and learning something about crypto. No, someone somewhere was hacked which was connected to crypto, so crypto is bad and I am happy. Its like a suitcase of money being stolen somewhere and people posting...huh you still feel your money is safe in your bank account? Thats literally how most of the posts in this thread sound. 

Please, continue this "discussion" without me.

How do you think governments determine if assets in a wallet are legal without monitoring transactions in some way, though?  You're basically saying "they should take my word for it that all my money is legally gained without having any way to independently verify that."  But that isn't how laws or regulations work for obvious reasons.  Government bodies and think tanks are already starting to brainstorm and/or legislate rules for disclosure surrounding certain self-hosted crypto wallet transactions, depending upon the amount and nature.

Kyleran

Torval said:

maskedweasel said:

Torval said:

Iselin said:

This thread has a conspicuous absence of crypto apologists. Where have they gone?

They're all checking their wallets and assets to make sure they haven't been cleaned out?

This is just one of several massive crypto theft events over the last couple of years. These people are dealing with hundreds of millions or billions of dollars and seem clueless on how to run a large financial entity and keep it secure. Some of the most competent companies in the world with massive resources struggle to maintain security integrity. Do these people have a clue or are too busying "HODL" their "diamond hands" to their crypto and stocks.

Not really. 

This is what happens when you hold all your money in custodial wallets. Ronin is non custodial, but they didn't hack the wallets themselves.

The issue wasn't about people having their personal wallets cleaned out, mostly Ronin was hacked to move funds that were transferred in as deposits to buy axies, so generally, you'd imagine people would have noticed immediately when funds didn't show up within the account after funding right away.  

But it seems as though the "treasury" on Sky Mavis' end was also hacked, so that's their money, mostly profits or operating costs. Sky Mavis doesn't pay out to players, players pay out to players, sky mavis is just an intermediary. 

These kind of transactions are very wild-westlike. 

It's almost like a bank robbery happening every 6 months, where someone finds a flaw to exploit. Unfortunately this is all part of the process in new technologies. It never pays to be an early adopter... we know this already. Nobody should be playing these games as a livelihood, at best they should play them for fun and if they earn something on the side, congrats. 

I was joking about the wallet checking, but not about the number of breaches and compromises over the last few years.

There is a complete fork of Ethereum because the entire blockchain was compromised. So, it doesn't even have to be a central wallet authority that gets breached. Them being new with new tech isn't a valid excuse. If anything, it's a good reason to heavily scrutinize and hold these people and groups accountable.

I can't believe, or rather I'm not surprised, that crypto fans are making excuses for and shrugging this off as just another day of doing business in the financial wild west. At least there is some satisfaction in seeing people that push or participate in these scams got burned for $600M.

One of the few instances in life where I have to struggle against the urge to root for the bad guys.

lahnmir

TheDalaiBomba said:

lahnmir said:

coretex666 said:

Sensai said:

coretex666 said:

Wargfoot said:

Remember kids, crypto is more secure than your bank.

It very much depends on the way of custody. If you hold your crypto in a self-hosted wallet where you do not rely on a 3rd party then it is very secure. More so then your cash in a bank which has the power to restrict you from transacting with your money. 

In this case, the people relied on a 3rd party which poses an obvious security risk.

What you wrote could be misleading to those who do not understand the details.

This is just as misleading.  Outside of a subpoena or regulatory order, when is a bank ever going to restrict you from making transactions?  You mean a clearing period for an official check or an unverified ACH?  As long as you aren't doing anything illegal,  you can transact freely. 

For instance, when you receive an unusually high amount of money in your bank account (i.e. significantly exceeding the regular traffic in your account), it is quite likely that the bank will freeze the money until you provide them with a proof of where the money came from. 

For instance, when I withdrew my proceedings from sales of crypto in 2017, the bank froze it until I provided them with evidence regarding the source of money I used to purchase that crypto. 

Often, the banks have thresholds above which they will always require a proof regarding source of money when it arrives in your account from a crypto exchange (e.g. my bank has this threshold at 15k EUR).

This is due to AML regulation.

I will let others judge if this makes my statement misleading or not. 

I think the whole idea that the ones and zero’s on your bank account are somehow more ‘real’ or safe then the ones and zero’s that make up the whole of crypto is laughable to begin with. It is just that our monetary and banking systems have had centuries to come up with support systems, safety measures etc. and still make stuff like what is in the Panama Papers possible. And people then laugh and point at the crypto world for not having better measures in place after being in existence for slightly over a decade.

The idea that you can simplify the whole of crypto in simple terms like digital money, bank replacement etc. is absurd to begin with, the whole discussion is flawed.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

That wound was self-inflicted.  You can't throw a stone in a crypto conversation without hitting someone talking about how much more secure crypto is.

If proponents advertise something on a cornerstone like security, that thing best deliver on that front.

Ohh I agree, as someone being ‘in the scene’ it is absolute cringe seeing some of the crypto fans behave, let alone the way NFTs are currently used. Still, two wrongs don’t make a right and lack of knowledge (besides a purely technical view) make good conversation difficult.

The world of crypto and its uses is incredibly diverse, it is not just a digital store of value, digital money or digital stock, it is also in its infant stages and could fail miserably. It could also become as big as the internet. The need to simplify all of it to ‘best thing ever’ or ‘pyramid scheme’ damages pretty much every conversation however, the wound indeed self-inflicted, but by both sides. BC might have been pretty blunt and overtly excited, in a way he was just mirroring behavior.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

TheDalaiBomba

It seems to me that the disconnect boils down to believing crypto can obviate or sidestep regulations designed to keep us safe and maintain faith in the open market.

It can't.  It will become regulated, much like every other current currency.  Why?  Because you'll never stop bad people from trying to do bad things under the nose of the law, specifically where money is concerned.  That's not a technology problem, it's a human one.

lahnmir

TheDalaiBomba said:

It seems to me that the disconnect boils down to believing crypto can obviate or sidestep regulations designed to keep us safe and maintain faith in the open market.

It can't.  It will become regulated, much like every other current currency.  Why?  Because you'll never stop bad people from trying to do bad things under the nose of the law, specifically where money is concerned.  That's not a technology problem, it's a human one.

I agree once again, and it ties in neatly with the blockchain trilemma. I for one am not against a bit less decentralization and a bit more regulation, not of the banking/currency kind but that of the stock market, with which it has much more in common. It can not become fully regulated/centralized though, just as it can’t (rightfully pointed out) become/stay fully decentralized. Still, that says nothing about the actual value or quality of crypto as a whole, just how some of the implementation would work.

/Cheers,
Lahnmir

Iselin

Superman0X said:

Iselin said:

This thread has a conspicuous absence of crypto apologists. Where have they gone?

I am sorry that you lost your money on crypto...
Feel better now?

Haven't lost a penny myself because I wouldn't touch a crypto game with a ten foot pole if there were even one worth playing because the game is actually good.