The U.S. Department of the Treasury said in a statement. Axie Infinity connected ronin $600 million from Bridge cryptocurrency claimed that the North Korean hacking group Lazarus was responsible for the hack that resulted in the theft.
The US Treasury Department claimed that the North Korean hacking group Lazarus was behind the $625 million Ronin hack, linked to Axie Infinity. – Coindesk
— Bitcoin System (@bitcoinsystem) April 14, 2022
Ethereum Address Allegedly Belonging to North Korean Group Added to Sanction List by US
However, the Department of the Treasury today introduced a new Ethereum added his address to the sanctions list. Blockchain analysis company Nansen marked the address in question as the “Ronin Bridge Attacker”. At the time of this writing, there are 148,000 Ethereums at the address.
Cryptocurrency analysis company Chainalysis also confirmed in a tweet that the address was linked to the Ronin hack. In addition, Elliptic announced on Thursday that 14% of the stolen funds were laundered illegally.
In a blog post he shared with Ronin Network, he stated that the FBI held Lazarus responsible for the hacking incident and that the Treasury Department also imposed sanctions on the funds in question.
Ronin Bridge Will Restart This Month
In the blog post, the developers also stated that they still have additional security moves to take to mitigate future risk in order for Ronin Bridge to be up and running again. The developers reported that the Ronin network will be restarted before the end of this month, and they will publish a comprehensive report on the hack later on.
Ronin, a sidechain connected to the Ethereum Blockchain, made transactions faster and cheaper on Axie Infinity, a play-to-win game. In the hacking event last month, 173,600 ETH and 25.5 million USDC had been stolen. The value of these cryptocurrencies at that time was at the level of $ 625 million.
With the steps taken on Thursday, US authorities have imposed sanctions on a Lazarus cryptocurrency wallet for the first time.
*Not investment advice.