Sky Mavis, the creator of Axie Infinity, has announced the recovery of $5.7 million from the infamous Ronin Bridge hack of 2022, thanks to the efforts of Norwegian authorities.
Coordinated Efforts Lead to Recovery
On June 7, Sky Mavis revealed that Norway’s central unit for combating economic and environmental crimes, Økokrim, managed to freeze and return $5.7 million from the Ronin Bridge hack. This recovery was made possible through the collaboration of law enforcement, legal teams, accountants, and blockchain forensic experts such as Chainalysis.
Sky Mavis expressed gratitude to the Norwegian government and the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for their roles in tracking and recovering the stolen funds.
Allocation of Recovered Funds
Sky Mavis announced that the recovered funds would be divided between covering recovery costs and replenishing the Axie Infinity treasury. The company stated, “15% of recovered assets will be used to cover costs and expenses incurred by those involved in the recovery efforts. The remaining 85% of recovered funds will be deposited into the Axie Infinity treasury.”
Additionally, law enforcement has frozen another $40 million in digital assets linked to the hack. While there is no specific timetable for the return of these assets, efforts to recover them are ongoing.
The Ronin Bridge Incident
The Ronin Bridge hack remains one of the most significant security breaches in cryptocurrency history. On March 29, 2022, the Ronin network reported a breach of its Ronin Bridge, a protocol enabling asset transfers between Ethereum and Ronin. The exploit involved the theft of 173,600 Ether and 25.5 million USD Coin, worth approximately $612 million at the time. The attacker used hacked private keys to execute the fraudulent withdrawals.
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In response to the hack, Sky Mavis raised $150 million in April 2022 through a funding round led by crypto exchange Binance to reimburse affected users. Since then, the company has enhanced the Ronin blockchain’s security by partnering with additional validators, including Google Cloud.
Despite the incident, the Ronin network remains a leading blockchain for nonfungible tokens (NFTs), currently ranked third in all-time NFT sales, following Solana and Ethereum.
