Ronin was built in 2021 as an Ethereum sidechain specifically for Axie Infinity, designed to solve the gas fee problem that was pricing players out of the game. Created by Sky Mavis, Ronin used a proof-of-authority consensus with a small validator set — nine validators total, with Sky Mavis controlling four of them plus one operated by Axie DAO. This centralization made Ronin fast and cheap but also created an enormous attack surface.
On March 23, 2022, hackers compromised five of Ronin’s nine validators through a social engineering attack targeting Sky Mavis employees and exploiting a vulnerability in the Axie DAO validator. With five of nine validators controlled, the hackers authorized two fraudulent withdrawals totaling 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC — approximately $625 million. The attack went unnoticed for six days until a user tried to withdraw funds and couldn’t.
The aftermath was chaotic. Sky Mavis raised $150 million led by Binance to reimburse affected users. The FBI attributed the attack to North Korea’s Lazarus Group. Ronin halted operations for three months while the bridge was rebuilt with improved security. The validator set was expanded to reduce centralization risk. It was the most expensive lesson in crypto security history.
Remarkably, Ronin survived. The chain relaunched, attracted new games beyond Axie (including Pixels, which became one of the most-played blockchain games in 2024), and built a genuine gaming ecosystem. The RON token was airdropped to users, and by 2025 Ronin was processing millions of daily transactions primarily from actual gamers rather than DeFi farmers. The comeback story is improbable — most chains wouldn’t survive losing $625 million — but Ronin’s focus on gaming and its committed community pulled it through.
Leave a Reply