Axie is a blockchain-based video game that leverages NFTs to reward players. While many blockchain games existed before NFTs came into the limelight, many use the technology to better gameplay. Axie was one of the first to use non-fungible tokens as a part of the game. Even after the NFT hype when down, it remained one of the most played games.

Developed by Sky Mavis, it is a game where you can battle, collect and earn. Also, the game has almost 3 million active players, making it one of the largest games worldwide. Like most blockchain-based games, it runs on Ethereum—one of the most popular blockchains. Additionally, the game has a sidechain called Ronin to help reduce transaction fees. Transaction fees are usually a common problem when using Ethereum. This blockchain charges a lot for most transactions because of the workload. Fortunately, Ronin was in place to minimize fees and enable players to enjoy gaming while supplementing their income. Let's talk more about Ronin Network.

Axie Infinity, a game based on Ethereum, allows players to collect specific in-game artifacts called Axies. Despite the blockchain game providing an avenue for users to have fun, its services have been limited by the problems of Ethereum. To get rid of the issues bugging the Ethereum blockchain from affecting the gameplay, the game developers unveiled the Ronin blockchain. According to the developers, the Ronin network is a sidechain that was specially made for Axie Infinity.

Ronin wallet is the wallet built on the Ronin blockchain for Axie Infinity players. Just like MetaMask and some other wallets, it is a browser extension wallet. This means that for it to work perfectly, it needs to be added to a browser. Besides using the wallet to play Axie Infinity, traders can also use it to carry out other transactions because of its low transaction fees. Players can also use the wallet to play other blockchain games developed on Ronin Bridge.

Ronin bridge is the gateway where users that play the Axie Infinity transfer their ETH to Ronin. It was developed and is currently being managed by Sky Mavis, the creators of the Axie Infinity game. After it is transferred to Ronin using the bridge, the ETH becomes Wrapped ETH.

After this conversion, users can now use it to purchase Axies to play the game. Asides from this function, the Ronin bridge also allows users to upgrade their Axies or Smooth Love Potion tokens. Additionally, users can use the bridge to transfer their tokens back to Ethereum and withdraw them.

Technically, the hack occurred on the Ronin Bridge, exposing Axie Infinity players along with other projects using that Bridge. In order to understand how the attacker managed to steal those 170k ETH, we need to understand how the Ronin Bridge works.

The funds on the Ronin Bridge are secured by a set of 9 secret keys. Having access to at least 5 of those keys allows the network to unlock and release the funds. This is done to speed up the validation process, kind of how Bitcoin works. On the other hand, in Bitcoin's case, we talk about the 51% attack that might bring Bitcoin to the ground.

The hacker managed to find a backdoor in the Ronin Bridge node. He got ahold of 4 validators on Ronin, and a third-party validator run by the Axie DAO. With those 5 validators at hand, the hacker managed to unlock the vault and withdraw 173,600 Ethereum.

Interestingly, the company posted a public notice about the event 6 days after the hack. They explained in detail what specifically happened. On the other hand, they uncovered that they already knew about the hack on the same day, as a normal user reported to their support his inability to withdraw 5K ETH from their Bridge.

From a technical standpoint, the company announced that they are increasing the validator threshold from five to eight. This makes the confirmation process slower and more expensive, but with the current situation, it is necessary. For now, Ronin will temporarily pause the Ronin Bridge to ensure no further attack vectors remain open. Also, they are in the process of migrating their nodes, which will separate from their old infrastructure.

From a business standpoint, the company is in touch with security teams at major exchanges. Binance is one example, and they'll be disabling their bridge to and from Ronin. The bridge will open up at a later date once the situation solves.  

The company is also working with Chainalysis to monitor the stolen funds. On another side, they also plan to contact government agencies to ensure maximum cooperation from all sides.

Obviously, this is a big blow for the entire cryptocurrency community. Having vulnerabilities in any blockchain system might have big repercussions on the entire trust that is given to this technology. What made people more furious is the fact that it took Ronin company a week to publish their "Community alert", deeming it misleading. What if this specific user did not try to withdraw and did not raise a concern, would the company have talked about that hack?

The company even turned off commenting on their announcement, as many users turned angry at the situation.

It is already known that blockchain projects are still in their "Proof of concept" phase. Every DeFi project slams users with a big disclaimer as soon as they visit their website, saying how risky this venture is. The risk that crypto enthusiasts take is not only the volatility of cryptos but also the hacks that the systems might endure.

Nothing is perfect from day 1. Everything needs constant fixing and enhancement. This is a big part of why blockchain tech did not strive. When this happens, the cryptocurrency market will definitely reach new heights in terms of market cap, users and business adoption, and ease of use among regular people.

It is unlikely to see a major crash following this hack. Back in the days, Mt. Gox exchange hack did indeed crash the crypto market, bringing Bitcoin prices from a high of $1,000 to a low of $200. But many other factors came into play other than this simple hack, such as that the market back in 2013 was overbought, an adjustment was needed, and the fact that this exchange handled more than 70% of Bitcoin transactions. Also, the crypto market was still in its infancy stage, and any event would've affected prices.

On the other hand today, the crypto market matured much more than before, especially with the increasing institutional adoption. People are aware that a hack on a certain blockchain should not mean that blockchain tech does not work. We expect prices to fall over the short-term, especially after a previous bull week as part of a heavy adjustment. For the medium/long term, prices should recover soon after.

Ethereum has had problems with high transaction fees, scalability, and in some cases, the security of the network for years. The conversion to Ethereum 2.0 should remedy this. We present Ethereum 2.0 and tell how far the development is in the transition.

Ethereum is the second-largest cryptocurrency after Bitcoin. The network was founded in 2015 by Vitalik Buterin. With Ethereum, he wanted to create a platform for decentralized, collaborative applications. The network uses the native token Ether (ETH) for transactions. Due to the growth of the Ethereum network, the value of the Ether token has increased massively in recent years.

Ethereum is characterized by its smart contract functions, which provide the basis for decentralized applications (dApps) on the Ethereum blockchain. Ethereum pioneered smart contracts, making it the blockchain of choice for developers of decentralized applications for years. 

Now is a good time to invest in Ether ahead of the launch of Ethereum 2.0. Buy the cryptocurrency on the crypto exchanges  Binance  and  Bitfinex !

Ethereum changed the crypto world with the introduction of smart contracts. But the blockchain also has to contend with some problems. Ethereum relied on the Proof-of-Work consensus mechanism. In this article, you will learn more about it. To sum up, Proof of Work has the disadvantage that as the network grows, transaction speeds decrease and transaction fees increase.

Ethereum has struggled with rising gas fees in recent years. Over time, the high fees made the blockchain less attractive for developers of decentralized applications. New blockchains such as Cardano, Solana, or Avalanche rely on the proof-of-stake consensus mechanism and are therefore much more scalable. Furthermore, the security on the Ethereum was good, but not excellent.

Ethereum had to address the problems in order not to fall behind the modern blockchains. Due to its pioneering position in smart contracts, Ethereum continues to be a leader in NFTs and DeFi. However, blockchains such as Solana and Terra are massive competitors of the Ethereum blockchain.

In addition to other small improvements, Ethereum 2.0 has one important task in particular: the switch from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake. This conversion has taken place over the last few months through various upgrades that Proof of Stake was to introduce step by step. 

There are roughly 3 phases in the development of Ethereum 2.0:

• Phase 0: Ethereum developed the so-called Beacon Chain , which is completely based on the Proof-of-Stake consensus mechanism. 
• Phase 1: So-called shard chains initiated. These are separate blockchains organized via the Beacon Chain.
• Phase 2: The old Ethereum 1 Chain is connected to the new Beacon Chain (Ethereum 2.0 ) .

According to Ethereum, the launch of Ethereum 2.0 should take place in the second quarter of 2022, in June to be precise. At the moment the developers are only working on the last step, merging the beacon chain with the old Ethereum chain. At the end of this process, Proof of Work should be a thing of the past. In addition, the new blockchain should be safer, faster, and more scalable. 

At the moment the development team is trying to replicate bugs in the testnet. However, the disturbances in the test net are probably of a minor nature, so the launch in June 2022 should not be at risk. A successful launch could give the Ether course a huge boost in the second and third quarters.

You can now buy ether cheaply on the crypto exchanges  Coinbase  and  Kraken  .

After last week's price adjustment, Bitcoin reached an important support area. This price level represents a very strong buy zone for many crypto investors. At that very same price, many institutions opened their positions. That's why many traders set their stop-loss right below it. In figure 1 below, we can clearly see how prices tend to rebound higher every time they touch this price around 33K.

The recent price surge comes after a heavy fall in prices. This occurred last week, and made prices fall towards this "buy zone". It is no surprise that we see today surging prices again, despite what's still happening in the eastern side of Europe.

It is clear that the entire crypto market is under a lot of pressure. From one side, the world is watching Ukraine fight with Russia. On another side, the stock market is being affected heavily, as the world lost a big consumer market. From food chains such as Mcdonald's withdrawing from Russia, to even being isolated from the www, the consequences did indeed affect the entire world.

Cryptocurrencies use the internet. If the internet was to shut off from Russia, it might be bad news as the Russian crypto market is significant. This should have a negative effect on prices. On the other hand, we might see companies and other investors jump to invest in cryptocurrencies. The reason behind this rationale is the falling equity market and the weakening of the euro. That's why we present two case scenarios.

In this case, Bitcoin prices continue heading higher and break 50K. After this move, anticipation to reach the previous ATH price of 69K should be expected.

For this to happen, Bitcoin price becomes weak and falls back below 40K again. This will drag the entire cryptocurrency market down and in turn, reach lower support areas such as 33K and 28K

Breaking News: A couple of hours ago, the well-known exchange Crypto.com suffered from an unidentified hack. This fiasco made the company halt all withdrawal transactions and reset the saved credentials of all users. What specifically happened with the Crypto.com hack and what happened specifically?

On Monday at noon UTC time, multiple users reported that they cannot make any withdrawal from their crypto.com account. Users also noticed that despite their credentials being saved on their PC or Mobile devices, they had to sign in again. This was a precautionary action taken by the company to limit the escalation of further breaches. Additionally, users were advised to reset their 2-factor authentication and set it up again.

Dogecoin founder Billy Markus also added to the fiasco. He noticed a suspicious transaction pattern on Etherscan that instigated the company to suspend all transactions until it extrapolates out what’s going on with its platform.

The post Crypto.com HACK: Withdrawals Suspended! Here’s what Happened appeared first on CryptoTicker.

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