KEY POINTS

  • The Ronin bridge of "Axie Infinity" was hacked in March
  • Sky Mavis announced the hack a week later 
  • AXS was trading up  13.72% at $18.59

Following reports of players' exodus from "Axie Infinity," a new rumor suggesting insider trading by Sky Mavis' founder could add acid taste to fans' palates.

One of the world's most popular play-to-earn NFT games, "Axie Infinity," survived one of the biggest hacks in the history of NFT and the crypto world–the $622 million attack on its Ronin bridge. But the once glorious game, supported by millions of players, is now fending off bigger issues– rumors of player exodus and insider trading.

A recent report by Bloomberg, which looked into blockchain data, revealed that the wallet owned by Trung Nguyen, the co-founder and CEO of Sky Mavis, transferred approximately $3 million worth of AXS governance tokens from the Ronin network to Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange. Sky Mavis is the studio behind "Axie Infinity."

In-game assets called 'Axies' are seen in this undated handout image from the blockchain-based game Axie Infinity, which is owned by Sky Mavis. Sky Mavis/Handout via REUTERS
In-game assets called 'Axies' are seen in this undated handout image from the blockchain-based game Axie Infinity, which is owned by Sky Mavis. Sky Mavis/Handout via REUTERS Reuters / Sky Mavis

The said transfer happened just three hours before Sky Mavis, the studio behind the hit game "Axie Infinity," revealed that its Ronin bridge was hacked. It is worth noting that the announcement of the hack was made a week after the actual attack occurred, with the team closing access to the network only in the late part of June.

Kalie Moore, a representative of Sky Mavis, did not deny Bloomberg's claim and confirmed the report after the information company and publication shared its blockchain data discovery with the studio. According to Moore, the funds were transferred from the co-founder's wallet so that short-sellers "would not be able to front-run the news."

The representative also said, "At the time, we (Sky Mavis) understood that our position and options would be better the more AXS we had on Binance." She added, "this would give us the flexibility to pursue different options for securing the loans/capital required." Moore also labeled accusations about the nature of the transfer as "baseless."

The "Axie Infinity" Ronin Bridge hack is considered the biggest loss in Ethereum's ecosystem this year. It was an elaborate and well-planned attack, which according to a Senior Engineer of Axie, only took a fake job offer to materialize.

AXS, the governance token of "Axie Infinity," was trading up 13.72% at $18.59 with a 24-hour volume of $479,571,429 as of 4:12 a.m. ET on Friday, based on the latest data from CoinMarketCap.

RELATED STORIES