AXIE INFINITY developer Sky Mavis has announced a new funding round, and at $150 million (around P7.7 billion), it’s almost equal to the money it raised last October to help grow the massively popular play-to-earn game.
However, this fresh injection of capital, which is led by cryptocurrency online exchange Binance, will be used to reimburse all user funds affected by the recent Ronin Validator hack.
In addition, “the new funding round, combined with Sky Mavis & Axie Infinity balance sheet funds, will ensure that all users are able to withdraw and deposit freely,” said the developer in a statement.
On March 23, validator nodes in Sky Mavis’ sidechain Ronin as well as its Axie DAO were compromised, resulting in a massive withdrawal of 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5 million USDC. Reports said that the cryptocurrency lost amounted to around $600 million dollars. (Read: The Ronin validator hack on Axie Infinity developer Sky Mavis, explained.)
Investigation on the cyber attack, which the developer called “socially engineered”, is still ongoing.
“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,” said Binance CEO “CZ” (Changpeng Zhao) in a statement.
“We have seen the tremendous work and growth of the Sky Mavis team since working together on the Axie Infinity project on Binance Launchpad. 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.”
Meanwhile, Sky Mavis CEO Trung Ngyen said that “Sky Mavis is committed to reimbursing all of our users' lost funds and implementing rigorous internal security measures to prevent future attacks.”
How Axie Infinity developers are increasing security
To increase security, Sky Mavis is increasing the validator checks to 21 over the next three months. It will only reopen its Ronin Network bridge after a security upgrade and a series of audits, which they expect will take a few weeks.
Once the bridge is reopened, individual users will be free to withdraw their funds.
Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm, and Accel will also participate in this funding round.
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