Ronin (RON-USD) is seeing a bright spotlight today, and for all the wrong reasons. The RON crypto is in the midst of immense turbulence. One of the largest hacks in the history of DeFi is prompting the volatility. The Ronin bridge hack is giving some bad actors a big payday as they move over $600 million in assets from the chain.
The Ronin network is built for blockchain gaming. Founded in early 2021, the network has become popular after taking on hosting duties for the hit play-to-earn gaming metaverse Axie Infinity (AXS-USD). AXS is one of the fastest-growing metaverse players of the last year. It saw a huge growth phase in the months following deployment on the Ronin chain. All in all, its climb from $6 in July to an all-time high of $160 in November marked a 2,500% gain in just four months’ time.
The success of the Axie Infinity franchise has incentivized developers to launch the RON crypto in early 2022. The coin is meant to be a governance token, providing holders with sway over community proposals and chain upgrades. Since its launch in late January, the coin has been up and down with no discernible pattern.
This week, though, there’s an unfortunate piece of news that justifies a steep price drop for RON. The network is now the victim of one of the largest hacks in the crypto world.
Ronin Bridge Hack Precedes Steep RON Crypto Drop, Binance Listing Withdrawal
Yesterday afternoon, Ronin took a big hit as it announced that a hacker had removed over $600 million in assets from a Ronin bridge. The news had an immediate negative effect on RON crypto prices. Unfortunately, that misfortune is following the network a day later.
CoinTelegraph provided details into how the hacker pulled off such a heist; in order to validate the fraudulent transaction, the hacker took control of the Ronin founder’s private keys, as well as a third-party key. Once in control, the hacker siphoned over 173,000 Ethereum (ETH-USD) and over $25 million in USD Coin (USDC-USD).
The Ronin bridge hack preceded a sharp decline in RON crypto prices, to the tune of over 20%. Today, those woes continue; Binance (BNB-USD) is announcing a halt on all RON deposits and withdrawals in response to the event. As the largest exchange in the world by trade volume, many users are being cut off from trading RON. The news continues to hold the crypto at a 20% loss nearly a full day after the hack was announced.
On the date of publication, Brenden Rearick did not hold (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the writer, subject to the InvestorPlace.com Publishing Guidelines.
