'Axie Infinity' Dev Raises $150M To Refund Hack Victims, Adds Five Validator Nodes To Ronin Bridge

Sky Mavis, a Vietnam-based startup behind the hit play-to-earn game "Axie Infinity," has raised $150 million in funding to reimburse players and has added five new validators to its sidechain wallet Ronin Network following the massive heist that cost over $600 million.

Sky Mavis is in a challenging situation after malicious actors looted its sidechain wallet, leaving the team no other choice but to freeze the bridge and halt withdrawals and deposits from "Axie Infinity" players. A few days after it said that it is fully committed to reimburse players, Sky Mavis was able to raise $150 million with the help of the world's largest crypto exchange, Binance, and other firms such as Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm and Accel.

"The round combined with Sky Mavis balance sheet funds will be used to ensure that all users affected by the Ronin Validator Hack will be reimbursed," Sky Mavis said in a blog post. The team also admitted that in its rush for "Axie Infinity's" mainstream adaptation, it "made some trade-offs that ended up leaving us vulnerable to this sort of attack."

The Ronin Network sidechain wallet is still on freeze and Sky Mavis said it "will open once it has undergone a security upgrade and several audits, which can take several weeks." Learning from its bitter experience, the team will "implement rigorous internal security measures to prevent future attacks."

The startup has added five new organizations to its validator node pool to add more layers of defense for the platform. These are Nansen, Delphi Digital, Stable Node, Animoca Brands, and Dialectic. It anticipates that the move will be completed within this week.

Sky Mavis plans to increase the validator group to 21 in the next three months, consisting of "various stakeholders including partners, community members, and long-term allies." The team also intends to bolster its current source code to enhance security and add decentralization functionality.

The plan includes integrating the option for setting withdrawal limits and allowing more governance functions. Sky Mavis has also opened applications for validators.

"Axie Infinity" was trading down 7.21% at $54.34 with a 24-hour volume of $642,668,488 as of 1:15 a.m. ET on April 7, based on data from CoinMarketCap.