Binance Headlines Axie Infinity Fundraiser After Ronin Heist

Axie Infinity creator, SkyMavis, was able to raise around 150 million USD from their latest fundraiser.

Collaboration Within The Space

Popular crypto exchange, Binance, headlined a series of investors that contributed to the latest Fundraiser done by Sky Mavis.

The Axie Infinity team announced the development through a tweet on April 6. The team was able to raise around 150 million US Dollars from the fundraising with participation from Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm, and Accel as well. Binance issued a statement shortly after the news broke out.

“Binance is happy to announce that it has led a $150 million USD funding round of Sky Mavis, the creator of leading NFT breakout title Axie Infinity, to restore funds on the Ronin Bridge,” said the cryptocurrency exchange in a blog post. “The round will be used to reimburse user funds affected by the Ronin Validator Hack.”

The Ronin Network, an Ethereum sidechain developed by Sky Mavis, was compromised at the end of March, which led to the delayed launch of the highly anticipated Axie Infinity: Origin Game mode. The fundraiser looks to reimburse any funds stolen from users during the Ronin heist. Top names in the crypto industry, like Binance, Huboi, FTX, and Crypto.com, have also committed to helping Sky Mavis investigate and trace funds from the hack.

“In order for the global ecosystem to continue thriving and maturing, it is imperative that we work together, especially when it comes to security, which is our strong suit. We have seen the tremendous work and growth of the Sky Mavis team since working together on the Axie Infinity project on Binance Launchpad,” said Binance CEO, Changpeng “CZ” Zhao, in Axie Infinity’s Substack. “We strongly believe Sky Mavis will bring a lot of value and growth for the larger industry and we believe it’s necessary to support them as they work hard to resolve the recent incident.”

Animoca Brands, one of the long-time investors in Axie Infinity that also contributed to the fundraising, released a statement of support to Sky Mavis after the fundraising news was sent out.

“Here at Animoca Brands, our support is based not only on our long friendship, but also on plain and logical economic common sense, because Sky Mavis is a great company with incredible performance, by virtually any measure,” said the venture capital company in their blog post. “Additionally, this is a good opportunity to demonstrate how Web3 and the open metaverse revolve around the shared network effect: when one community, such as Axie Infinity, grows and prospers, the benefits extend to other participants in the wider ecosystem. We need to grow this space together, and that means we need to be there for each other.”

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We Continue Building

The team confirmed that the breach was socially engineered and is working with ChainAnalysis and Crowdstrike for the investigation. Sky Mavis commits that they will recover the stolen funds from this incident. 

“Sky Mavis is committed to reimbursing all of our users’ lost funds and implementing rigorous internal security measures to prevent future attacks. With the support of Binance and other industry leaders, we will be able to quickly expand the validator set from five to 21 validators to ensure the security of the Ronin network,” Sky Mavis CEO, Trung Nguyen, said in their substack post. “While we address this issue, we are also focusing on the future, starting with tomorrow’s launch of Axie Infinity: Origin. We are also thrilled to collaborate with Binance NFT on future projects.”

As of writing, the Binance SLP and AXS deposits and withdrawals, and Katana, Ronin’s decentralized exchange, have both opened up again since the incident. Additionally, Sky Mavis looks to increase the number of Ronin validators on the system to 21. They have named Delphi Digital, Animoca Brands, Dialectic, Nansen, and Stable Node as the initial batch of new validators. The team also opened up an application form to those looking to become a validator.

Source : bsc.news