Jeff “Jihoz” Zirlin, one of the co-founders of Axie Infinity and Ronin Network, has fallen victim to a hacking incident. Two of Zirlin’s crypto wallet addresses were compromised, resulting in the theft of approximately $9.7 million worth of Ether (ETH). The stolen funds were transferred through Tornado Cash.
On February 23, blockchain investigator PeckShield raised the alarm about a “whale wallet” breach on the Ronin Bridge. The hacker managed to steal 3,248 ETH. In response, Aleksander Larsen, co-founder of Ronin Network, asserted that the Ronin Bridge has robust security measures in place and suspected that the hack originated from a compromised wallet.
Larsen also emphasized that the Ronin Bridge had undergone an audit and was designed to halt any unusually large withdrawals. Shortly after, Zirlin confirmed that two of his personal wallets had indeed been hacked. He clarified that the attack was not the result of vulnerabilities within the Ronin chain or Sky Mavis operations. Zirlin stated:
“While no specific details were provided about the events leading up to the hack, Zirlin’s statement suggests that the private keys of his two wallets were leaked, thereby granting unauthorized access to his personal crypto wallets.”
PeckShield’s investigation into the compromised wallets from Ronin Bridge v2 revealed that the stolen 3,248 ETH was initially divided and transferred to three different wallets. Eventually, the funds were funneled into Tornado Cash, a service commonly used by hackers to obfuscate the ownership and traceability of funds.
In a related incident, Binance froze $4.2 million worth of stolen XRP on February 1. These funds were part of a $112 million hack on Ripple co-founder Chris Larsen’s personal wallet on January 31. Unlike the hacker involved in the Axie Infinity incident, Larsen’s hacker did not utilize crypto mixer services or decentralized exchanges to conceal their identity. As a result, Binance was able to track down some of the funds and prevent the hacker from accessing them.
Please note that the content provided is a creative re-expression of the original article and may not reflect the exact details or events mentioned in the source.