Ronin Network Suffers Another Hack, Loses $11.33 Million to MEV Bot

Ronin Network, an Ethereum Virtual Machine blockchain for play-to-earn games, just witnessed its second hack in roughly two years.

Ronin Network, an Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM) blockchain designed for play-to-earn games, has encountered another setback as its blockchain becomes the target of a new attack. According to reports, the exploiters managed to siphon over $11 million from the protocol.

In a tweet on March 29, blockchain security firm PeckShield highlighted a Maximal Extractable Value (MEV) bot withdrawing Ether (ETH) and USD Coin (USDC) to the tune of $11.33 million from the network’s Ronin Bridge. The tweet pondered whether the transactions were executed by exploiters or whitehat hackers.

A total of 4,000 ETH, valued at $9.33 million, was shifted out of the Ronin Bridge in the first transaction, landing in the MEV bot address. In the second transaction, the MEV bot withdrew around $2 million in USDC, which was swapped for 796 Wrapped Ether (WETH) on the decentralized exchange Unispot V3.

Following PeckShield's alert, Aleksander Leonard Larsen, co-founder and chief operating officer of Sky Mavis, the developer behind the Ronin network, revealed that the protocol's team had paused its operations to investigate a report from whitehat hackers regarding a potential MEV exploit.

According to Larsen, the Ronin Bridge currently holds over $850 million in crypto assets, and all assets are safe. He stated that further details on the attack would be disclosed once the team had completed an in-depth analysis.

Another Ronin Attack Coming?

The latest attack on Ronin has sparked concerns within the crypto community about a potential repeat of an incident that rocked the network two years ago. In March 2022, Ronin Network fell victim to the largest crypto hack ever, losing roughly $620 million in ETH and USDC after its validator nodes were compromised.

Despite Sky Mavis offering a $1 million bug bounty in exchange for the funds, the attackers, later revealed to be the North Korean hacking entity Lazarus Group, moved the stolen stash across centralized exchanges, the Bitcoin network, and the crypto mixer Tornado Cash.

The Ronin network was severely impacted by the attack and faced difficulties in reimbursing affected users. Three months after the incident, the project finally relaunched the bridge by implementing a hard fork that required network validators to update their software.

Crypto losses from exploits have not been limited to the Ronin network; one of its co-founders also lost millions to exploiters. Earlier this year, Jeff Zirlin lost $10 million in ETH due to a security breach in his wallets.

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