Sky Mavis raises $150m to reimburse Axie users for Ronin heist

sky mavis NFT gaming axie infinity
Image credit: Axie Infinity

Vietnam unicorn Sky Mavis, creator of the play-to-earn game sensation Axie Infinity, raised $150 million funding led by cryptocurrency exchange Binance to reimburse lost user funds from the recent Ronin validators heist.

The funding was participated by Animoca Brands, a16z, Dialectic, Paradigm, and Accel, and will ensure all users affected by the hack will be reimbursed. In addition, the company is in the process of implementing rigorous internal security measures to prevent another incident from happening.

According to a BBC report, the Ronin blockhain lost $615 million, considered to be the largest crypto hack of all time. Attackers stole the private authentication keys and transferred 173,600 Ethereum and 25.5m USDC to their own wallets.

“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,” said Trung Nguyen, Sky Mavis CEO.

Nguyen also said that Sky Mavis will collaborate with Binance NFT on future projects.

“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,” Binance CEO “CZ” Changpeng Zhao added.

In October 2021, Sky Mavis clinched $152 million in Series B funding led by a16z which will expand and build their own distribution platform for blockchain-based mobile games.

Despite the setbacks faced by Sky Mavis, Axie Infinity maintains a dominating stance in the NFT gaming space. It is considered to be the most played NFT game of all time, with 2.2 million monthly active players. Moreover, there are 2.6 million unique Axie addresses, which is four times bigger than the largest NFT project, NBA Top Shot, by holders.

Meanwhile on Thursday, Sky Mavis released Axie Infinity:Origin, a free-to-play title showcasing different animation designs, battle mechanics, and other features.

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