Hackers managed to steal about $612 million worth of assets from a cryptocurrency exchange network for Axie Infinity, one of the most popular online video games.
The incident, the second-largest known theft of cryptocurrency assets, took place on March 23 but was announced Tuesday by Ronin, a blockchain service managed by the owners of Axie Infinity.
Ronin discovered the hack when a user was unable to withdraw 5,000 ethers from the blockchain-based game. The company halted its exchange network as it scrambled to collaborate with forensic cryptographers and law enforcement"to make sure all funds are recovered or reimbursed," per the blog post.Hackers managed to compromise the validator nodes, which are used to approve transactions, and send 173,600 ethers, or roughly $586 million, to an anonymous ethereum wallet.
The Ronin hack is the second-largest known cryptocurrency theft in terms of the value of the assets at the time of the theft, according to NBC. The stolen Ronin assets were worth about $540 million when the hack took place last week.