Gala Games Attacker Returns Ethereum After $240 Million Token Exploit

The as-yet-identified attacker behind Monday’s $240 million Gala Video games token exploit has returned the Ethereum (ETH) gained from promoting among the tokens, as Gala reckons with the fallout from the assault and the way to tackle lingering questions.

Roughly 5,913 ETH, or about $22 million, was despatched again from the attacker’s pockets to a Gala pockets on Tuesday morning, representing the funds earned from promoting 600 million GALA tokens on decentralized change Uniswap shortly after Monday’s exploit.

In Gala’s Discord server Tuesday, CEO Eric “Benefactor” Schiermeyer mentioned that the agency will “most likely purchase and burn” GALA tokens utilizing the recovered ETH—a transfer that would doubtlessly drive up the worth of the token following Monday’s dip.

On Monday, Schiermeyer wrote in a Discord announcement that the crypto gaming startup believed it knew who was behind the assault, and mentioned it was working with authorities to deliver the attacker to justice. The particular person in query has but to be publicly recognized, and Gala Video games wouldn’t remark additional past printed statements.

Gala printed a weblog put up recounting the assault and the agency’s countermeasures on Tuesday. A pockets with administrative entry to the GALA token minting contract minted 5 billion GALA tokens on Monday, or about $240 million price on the time of the exploit, after which proceeded to start out promoting them on the open market.

After about 45 minutes, Gala was in a position to block the pockets from making any additional gross sales because of a operate constructed into its v2 contract improve from final fall. The attacker was in a position to promote 600 million GALA tokens earlier than that occurred, and the worth of GALA plunged by 20% throughout that span because the market contended with the flood of tokens.

“We wish to guarantee our group that the minting capabilities of $GALA on GalaChain stay safe and uncompromised,” the put up reads. “Our inside controls and multisig safety protocols are designed to guard in opposition to such incidents, and we’re repeatedly enhancing them to remain forward of potential threats.”

Nevertheless, whereas the agency claimed that the contract is safe, Schiermeyer beforehand wrote on Monday that Gala had “tousled” with regard to entry to such features.

“We tousled our inside controls… this should not have occurred and we’re taking steps to make sure it does not ever once more,” he wrote Monday.

What concerning the different 4.4 billion GALA tokens? That’s practically 9% of the entire provide of fifty billion GALA tokens, they usually at the moment sit frozen inside the attacker’s pockets. On Monday, Schiermeyer wrote that they might be thought-about “successfully burned,” as they’re inaccessible and may’t be spent.

In different phrases, the Gala ecosystem would take into account them faraway from circulation. However now, it seems that Schiermeyer’s classification was untimely, and the group of Gala community node operators could have the chance to vote on the query.

“A brand new Founder’s Node ecosystem governance vote will quickly determine if the blocklisted GALA might be thought-about burned because it pertains to GALA’s dynamic provide distribution mannequin as described within the Gala Ecosystem Blueprint,” the put up reads.

Edited by Ryan Ozawa.