Ronin customers lose $818m in second largest ever crypto hack

It’s the second largest ever mass theft of cryptocurrency and some people have reportedly lost their entire life savings.

A whopping US$615 million (A$818 million) has been stolen in the second largest ever theft of cryptocurrency to date.

The Ronin Network, a project that powers the popular mobile game Axie Infinity, noticed the hack six days after it occurred.

On March 23, a hacker transferred 173,600 ether tokens and 25.5 million USD Coin tokens out of the Ronin Network.

The crypto company realised something was seriously wrong when a customer complained on Tuesday local time that they couldn’t access any of their funds.

When the cyber attack occurred, the hacker made off with US$540 million (A$718 million). Since then, ethereum and USD Coin has gone up slightly in value, meaning the haul is now worth US$615 million (A$818 million).

Just past 8am AEDT Thursday, Ronin provided an update to its thousands of customers revealing they had not yet recovered the money but were working hard to do so.

1/ @Ronin_Network update

Our Ronin Substack has been updated with additional information.

We are in the process of conducting a thorough investigation; working with @Chainalysis to monitor the stolen funds and @Crowdstrike to handle forensics.

— Ronin (@Ronin_Network) March 30, 2022

The address where the stolen money was sent to. Most of it is still there.

As well as revealing they were working with other groups to track the funds, Ronin assured investors using the platform that all the lost money would be fully reimbursed.

“We are committed to ensuring that all of the drained funds are recovered or reimbursed,” they said on Twitter.

The crypto provider earlier said that the hack had happened because the cyber criminal stole the private keys to people’s accounts, giving them the passwords needed to access funds.

Adding on this, Ronin said on Thursday: “We are certain that this was an external breach.

“All evidence points to this attack being socially engineered, rather than a technical flaw.”

There’s a chance of recovering the money mostly in full, as the majority of the funds are still in the hacker‘s digital wallet, according to Ronin.

Crypto users on Ronin are currently still unable to withdraw or deposit funds on the network.

Several customers spoke to the BBC and said they couldn’t emphasise enough how big of a breach this was.

Jack Kenny, from Ireland, lost a whopping $10,000 through the hack.

He told the British publication: “I don‘t think people fully understand the significance of this hack – $600 million is a very big portion of all the assets in this network.”

Another man, this time from the US east coast, said he had lost $8,000 but knew of people that had invested their “life savings” after saving up digital tokens from playing Axie Infinity.

It is unclear how many Australians have been affected.

News.com.au has contacted Ronin for comment.

The US$540 million (A$718 million) heist makes this the second-largest crypto theft on record, according to blockchain analysis firm Elliptic.

Last August, hackers took off with even more money, after stealing at least US$610 (A$811) from the DeFi site Poly Network.

What shows up when you try to visit the Ronin site.

This is far from the first time a widespread cyber attack has crippled a crypto trading platform.

Back in January, one of the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges, Crypto.com, had to suspend all actions on its site while in crisis mode dealing with a major security breach.

The issue has since been resolved.

News.com.au has previously reported on Australian individuals with cryptocurrency portfolios who were targeted by cyber criminals.

A Sydney couple lost $104,000 in May last year while an Adelaide couple lost $93,000 despite putting their investment in a secure offline wallet.

A February report from crypto data company Chainalysis — a firm that is now working closely with Ronin to recover funds — found that cryptocurrency-based crime soared in 2021.

Over $750 million worth of cryptocurrency was stolen from people last year.

North Korea-affiliated fraudsters were the worst, responsible for $400 million worth of cryptocurrency hacks in those 12 months.

Most of these scammers used legitimate centralised cryptocurrency exchanges to send the stolen funds to, then transferred it to another untraceable account.

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Originally published as Ronin customers lose $818m in second largest ever crypto hack