Summary:
- A digital wallet belonging to Axie Infinity CEO allegedly moved $3 million worth of AXS to Binance before the announcement of the $600 million exploit on the Ronin Bridge.
- Crypto Youtuber, Asobs, was the first to spot the significant AXS transaction from the wallet.
- Sky Mavis’ spokesperson has explained that the AXS was moved to ensure short sellers would not front-run the news.
The CEO of the popular gaming Dapp, Axie Infinity, allegedly transferred $3 million worth of AXS before an announcement was made regarding the $600 million hack of the Ronin Network bridge by the North Korean hacker group Lazarus.
According to a report by Bloomberg, hours before the announcement and halting of the Ronin Bridge, a digital wallet belonging to the project’s CEO and co-founder, Trung Nguyen, made a large transfer to Binance to the tune of $3 million in AXS tokens.
AXS Transaction Discovered by Crypto Youtuber, Asobs.
The team at Bloomberg has presented the on-chain data to the Sky Mavis team, who have since confirmed that the digital wallet belongs to Mr. Nguyen.
The report by Bloomberg explained that the large AXS transaction to Binance was first identified by a crypto Youtuber who goes by the screen name, Asobs.
Asobs shared the information with Bloomberg Businessweek, which further confirmed the on-chain data with a team comprising of ‘Kristen and Zach Abernathy, associate professors of mathematics at Winthrop University with expertise in blockchain analysis.’
Sky Mavis Says the Transaction Was Made to Prevent Short-sellers from Front-Running the News.
A spokeswoman of Sky Mavis, the parent company of Axie Infinty, told Bloomberg that the Axie Infinity team transferred the funds to mitigate against short-sellers who had the intention of front-running the news. She explained:
At the time, we (Sky Mavis) understood that our position and options would be better the more AXS we had on Binance. This would give us the flexibility to pursue different options for securing the loans/capital required.
The Founding Team chose to transfer it from this wallet to ensure that short-sellers, who track official Axie wallets, would not be able to front-run the news.
The spokeswoman also explained that the funds were moved ‘to shore up the company’s finances during the crisis’ and ‘provide liquidity to its users as it restored access to funds via Binance.’
Asobs Has Also Been Examining Other AXS Wallets that He Thinks Belong to Axie Infinity Employees.
In addition, the Bloomberg report mentioned that crypto Youtuber Asobs had examined other wallets that he believes could be linked to other Sky Mavis employees. According to his analysis, Sky Mavis employees received their paychecks in AXS and several wallets potentially belonging to its staff made large transactions during the same period as Mr. Nguyen’s wallet.