Ronin Ethereum Hack Update: Over $60 million has been moved since last week

Saif Naqvi
Source: Pexels

The notorious hacker, who breached the Ronin Network for one of the largest heists in crypto history, has transferred over $60 Million worth of Ether over the past week through Tornado Cash.

Source: Twitter

Several transactions on blockchain activity tracker Etherscan showed that the hacker’s main address, tagged as the Ronin Bridge Exploiter, has moved around 21,500 Ether using Tornado Cash.

Tornado Cash is a privacy protocol that obfuscates transaction activity by breaking the on-chain link between the source and destination addresses. The protocol has been heavily misused by crypto thieves of late and was at the forefront of the infamous $280 Million KuCoin hack in 2020.

As per Etherscan, the Ronin hacker routed several batches of 100 Ether through Tornado Cash and distributed them into separate wallets. Overall, a total of 8,653 Ether left the hacker’s main account over the past two days. The latest transfer amount of 3,202 Ether was made less than 2 hours ago from the time of publication. Currently, the main wallet holds more than $460 Million worth of Ether after the recent transfers.

Sky Mavis Announces $1 Million Bounty Program

Source: Twitter

In an eager attempt to safeguard the system from future thefts, the creator of Axie Infinity, Sky Mavis, announced a $1 Million bounty program. Under the program, ‘whitehat hackers’ are incentivized to dig out ‘vulnerabilities’ associated with the network’s blockchain, smart contracts, and apps. The more severe a potential vulnerability is, the greater the reward.

Blockchain rewards carry the largest reward weightage, ranging from $1,000 for “low” risk findings to $1,000,000 for “fatal” ones.

Last month, the crypto community was rocked after a hacker exploited the Ronin network and made off with $625 Million worth of Ether. The Ronin bridge is an Ethereum-linked sidechain used for the blockchain game Axie Infinity.