Sky Mavis Co-Founder Jeffrey Zirlin’s wallets hacked for $9.7 million in ETH: Peckshield

Jeffrey Zirlin, co-founder of Sky Mavis that created the Axie Infinity game, said that two of his wallets were hacked on Friday morning Asia time and that Ronin was not affected, according to his X post. 

Blockchain security firm PeckShield identified that a “whale wallet” had been compromised with about 3,248 Ether, worth around $9.7 million, withdrawn from the Ronin Bridge and moved to crypto mixer Tornado Cash.

“The attack is limited to my personal accounts, and has nothing to do with validation or operations of the Ronin chain,” Zirlin said on X. “Additionally, the leaked keys have nothing to do with Sky Mavis operations.”

Zirlin’s Sky Mavis founding counterpart Aleksander Leonard Larsen also said on X that the Ronin Bridge has no issue, and a wallet was compromised “like what happens on every chain.”

Ronin, a sidechain hosting Sky Mavis’ blockchain game Axie Infinity, was exploited for $625 million in March last year. The hackers, later identified to be North Korea-backed Lazarus Group, gained unauthorized access via an email-based phishing attack.