2022 has been a bumpy year for the cryptocurrency market, with one of the worst bear markets on record and the downfall of some major platforms within the space. The global economy is beginning to feel the consequences of the pandemic, and clearly, this has had an influence on the crypto industry.
Below is a breakdown of some of the biggest disappointments in the crypto space this year.
Axie Infinity’s Ronin Bridge hacked
In March of this year, Ronin, the blockchain network that runs the popular nonfungible token (NFT) crypto game Axie Infinity, was hacked for $625 million. The hacker took 173,600 Ether (ETH) and 25.5 million USD Coin (USDC) from the Ronin bridge in two transactions.
When the Lazarus Group started its attack, five of the nine private keys for the Ronin Network’s cross-chain bridge were hacked. With this vote, they authorized two withdrawals totaling $25.5 million in USDC and 173,600 ETH.
According to the Ronin group, Axie Infinity’s issues began in November 2021, when its user base had expanded to an untenable size. Consequently, the corporation’s safety rules had to be relaxed to fulfill client demand. After the initial phase of fast development was completed, the firm reduced its safety procedures.
Bridge hacks have accounted for 2/3 of the $3B that has been stolen from DeFi.@AxieInfinity‘s @Ronin_Network bridge hack has been the largest to date at $600M lost. pic.twitter.com/5IAuTqShMO
— Messari (@MessariCrypto) August 30, 2022
The main difficulty was a lack of a suitably decentralized network created by game developer Sky Mavis. The hacker acquired access to the private keys of five of Sky Mavis’ Ronin Chain’s nine validator nodes, enabling them to compromise the network. When the hackers gained control of five nodes, they essentially controlled over half of the network and were free to accept or deny whatever transactions they wanted. They obtained ETH and USDC via falsifying withdrawals.
The crime occurred on March 23, but it was only noticed on March 29, when a user reported being unable to withdraw 5,000 ETH from the Ronin bridge ATM. In the aftermath of the attack, Axie Infinity developers raised $150 million to reimburse the affected users.
TerraUSD/LUNA collapse
On May 7, when over $2 billion in TerraUSD (UST) was unstaked (removed from the Anchor Protocol), hundreds of millions of United States dollars were quickly liquidated. It’s unclear if this was a deliberate attack on the Terra blockchain or a response to…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Cointelegraph.com News…
