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$625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

roninblockchain.substack.com

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Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#301

Post by MereInterest »

basisword wrote: post #154
ddkwool wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true in the EU, we got scammed into making a bank transfer from Germany to Belgium for a bicycle that never arrived. We contacted the police and bank with all the details, and had to pay our bank about 40 euros to ask the scammer if they would refund the money, they said no and that was it. EU banking laws protected them. On the plus side the website appears to be gone now.

Voluntarily transferring money is very different from having it stolen. The bank should protect your money while holding it from theft. They can't protect you from your own decisions on how to use your money.

They voluntarily accepted a contract wherein they would transfer money in exchange for receiving a bicycle. No bicycle was received, so this voluntary decision does not mean that the money transfer was voluntary. They did not accept a contract wherein they would transfer money in exchange for nothing. Since they did not accept this contract, this does not make the money transfer be voluntary.

Being a victim of fraud is not "voluntary" in any meaningful way.

Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#302

Post by Miner49er »

Jxl180 wrote: post #298
Miner49er wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What other value is there in cryptocurrency over traditional money?

Traditional money as in cash? Mailing cash to someone on the other side of the world is not ideal. Trusting PayPal or Stripe to not arbitrarily freeze your account because they think you’re making too much money too quickly is not ideal. Having to show ID to send or receive a money order is not ideal. That doesn’t mean I don’t condone the government prosecuting thieves who steal crypto.

> Trusting PayPal or Stripe to not arbitrarily freeze your account because they think you’re making too much money too quickly is not ideal. Having to show ID to send or receive a money order is not ideal.

These are all benefits from lack of authority.

Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#303

Post by danso »

I'm not well read up on how sidechains work, but they're effectively as public and transparent as the main blockchains themselves, right? So anyone, particularly Axie themselves, could/should have a live dashboard reporting out their holdings. And the fact that it took 6 days for this to be noticed (and even then, only by accident) means they didn't bother having this metric be readily visible?

(nevermind not having triggers to go off when a lot of funds are suddenly withdrawn for any reason)

Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#304

Post by vmception »

erdeszt wrote: post #293
vmception wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's amusing to see these kind of statements from the decentralized no goverment/no authorities crowd I see this meme and I don't get it Why do you think this studio was a no government no authorities crowd? I havent seen anything from Axie or its founders that suggested that, my assumption is that you see one word or one piece of technology that overlaps with the aspirations of completely different people that are…

> Why do you think this studio was a no government no authorities crowd? I meant the general web3/cryptobro crowd

Then maybe just ignore those people and let the people running businesses just do what they need to do, like issue empty PR damage control statements like any hacked organization will do

Lets make fun of them just like we were making fun of Okta’s response over Lapsus

No need to project your own cognitive dissonance

Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#305

Post by Symbiote »

brazzy wrote: post #162
ddkwool wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true in the EU, we got scammed into making a bank transfer from Germany to Belgium for a bicycle that never arrived. We contacted the police and bank with all the details, and had to pay our bank about 40 euros to ask the scammer if they would refund the money, they said no and that was it. EU banking laws protected them. On the plus side the website appears to be gone now.

Banks won't reverse transfers depiberately initiated by the account holder. You would have had to go through the legal system to get your money back. But that's a different case than money being "drained" from an account by someone else.

They sometimes do reverse these transactions, but the amount of money involved here (1 bicycle worth) is probably easy for the scammer to put out-of-reach of the bank very quickly -- withdrawing cash, buying gift cards etc.

Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#306

Post by the_gastropod »

gonehome wrote: post #58
SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't that anathema to the new world order the crypto people are espousing?

There are lots of us that recognize the new capability crypto provides (improved self-custody over assets, currency scarcity not controlled by governments) while also not claiming a new world order. Like most things it's not all or nothing and there are pros and cons.

Hitting yourself in the head with a hammer might offer some benefits:

- The cool metal might cool your head on a hot summer day

- Might knock yourself unconscious to avoid boredom (could be real handy during long flights!)

But these nice features are inseparable from the fact that you're hitting yourself in the head with a hammer, which has many serious downsides, too.

The "improved self-custody" crypto offers is one side of the ledger. The other side is: you lose regulatory protection, and can be swindled with virtually zero repercussions. Crypto's entire reason for existing is to circumvent government control—it's pretty "new world order" all the way to the core.

Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#307

Post by arcticbull »

xur17 wrote: post #238
horsawlarway wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What savings? The savings associated with transactions fees (reasonable for very large spends - utterly ridiculous for small amounts, even today after the major drops, at more than 1.7 USD/tx)? The savings associated with double spend fraud that occurs if you don't delay the transaction for 3 to 6 blocks even though you say it's final (hint - that's not true, and waiting is a large downside for prompt processing at a…

> The savings associated with transactions fees (reasonable for very large spends - utterly ridiculous for small amounts, even today after the major drops, at more than 1.7 USD/tx)? On mainnet ETH, sure, but that arguably shouldn't be used for small payments like you are discussing. There are second layer networks that can do this for pennies on the dollar and make a lot more sense. And arguably $1.7 USD / tx would c…

> I do get that you don't "get" it, but I'll just say - I happily send and receive both BTC and ETH, and it is a night and day difference from sending using traditional bank accounts. I actually feel like I own the money, I can send it to anyone I want at any time, and the transaction settles in seconds. Last time I sent money via ACH, it took a solid 4 days (since I initiated on a Friday).

This is just a criticism of US banking, not 'TradFi' as a whole. Most countries have let you do the exact same thing for free or at a low cost out of your existing bank account, no overhaul required, for years. The EU has SEPA, the UK has FPS, Canada has Interac e-Transfers, Australia has NPP. I suspect you'd have a hard time finding a country other than America which doesn't support this.

... and the US has RTP for about half the population, and is getting FedNow for everyone next year. Not to mention Cash App and Venmo and so on.

This is a solved problem.

If you can even call it a problem. The thing is, if it were actually a meaningful source of friction instead of a talking point, it would have been resolved years ago.

I get it, moving money is boring unless the money is also a scratch-off lotto ticket.

> I can deposit money into my crypto backed debit card in under a minute in the middle of a weekend.

This is also how Cash App and Venmo support instant transfers/deposits to a dollar-denominated bank account 24/7. You can do this via unlinked refund or whatever the new mechanism is. That's not crypto related, it wasn't developed for crypto but rather coopted (not just by crypto, but by Venmo and Cash App). That's just how debit rails work.

Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#308

Post by mtoner23 »

mattbrewsbytes wrote: post #99
zaroth wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously. That was really really hard to read. So basically $600mm in a hot wallet and no one even watching it. Just wow. They didn’t even hack the smart contract, they just compromised 4 systems holding the private keys, and there was an RPC signing function giving free access to the 5th. Good god.

Sounds like if they had a checking account with their bank credentials stored in ENV variables and someone got access to that server it would be the same outcome. The details of it being on a crypto-currency are interesting but when password/passphrase/private key security is poor it doesn't really matter the medium holding the money.

Yeah, banks dont let you move this money without multiple levels of identity verification by both parties.

Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#309

Post by 58x14 »

jrm4 wrote: post #97
xiphias2 wrote: post #25

,, Originally, Sky Mavis chose the five out of nine threshold as some nodes didn’t catch up with the chain, or were stuck in syncing state’’ Sounds like a great plan for storing half billion dollars. I’m not blaming the developers, as they are incentivized to move fast and break things, I’m just sorry for all the people who trust new protocols so easily without any knowledge in safe software security practices. Perso…

"I'm not blaming the developers.." I mean, I think it's time to put that on the table...

If I was betting, I'd put my money on VC pressure.

Re: $625M worth of ETH drained on Axie Infinity's Ronin Network

#310

Post by lolinder »

nightpool wrote: post #297
lolinder wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you have when you're done with the process you've described is a centralized banking system managed by world governments, which is what we already have. It's not perfect, but it works, and lots of people are actively working on improving it in ways that don't involve the contradiction inherent in centralized decentralization.

Yes? That's the point of my comment? I'm confused about what you're saying. I'm trying to answer your question "And do that every time a hack occurs?". The answer is yes, it's completely feasible and within the powers of a government or inter-government treaty organization to do this every time a hack occurs, because they already do . I'm not trying to say that such a system is good , just that it's possible . There…

Ah, I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you were advocating that we should do that, and I was wondering why that would be better than the status quo.
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