Crypto-bridge hacks reach over US$1bil in little over a year

Axie Infinity’s Ronin was built to handle more demand from Axie gamers who are looking for ways to avoid ethereum’s expensive transaction fees. — Reuters

The US$600mil (RM2.5bil) hack this month of a crypto "bridge” supporting Axie Infinity’s play-to-earn video game highlights the increasingly problematic nature of the arcane software used within the world of digital assets, blockchains and the metaverse.

Weaknesses in bridges, which allow tokens designed for one blockchain to be used on another, has led to more than US$1bil (RM4bil) in stolen cryptocurrency in a little more than a year across seven different incidents, according to data compiled by researcher Chainalysis.