· 3 min read · Mar 31, 2022
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As the latest hack on Ethereum based bridge undergoes a check by some crypto enthusiasts, this has brought in some discussion with crypto communities occupied by crypto newbies declaring, how then is blockchain project/platform safe?
The crypto exploits in the space are not a new deed, but how this activity carried out most times create conflict on the solution crypto/blockchain come to solve. Yes, blockchain transactions history cannot be tampered with, yet hackers can compromise account keys?
One of the major problems in the space is the scalability problem, which affects transaction confirmation and gas fees on the network and this prompted the introduction of another network/chain. Holding a token on the Ethereum blockchain and trying to network on another chain will cause finding the best way of swapping/bridging the token to that network. There are many bridges in the space and you may not hear about many of them until something like a hack/breach happens on their network, just with PolyNetwork and now Ronin.
Let’s Dive Into How Ronin (The latest Hack) happened and see through the most secure bridge in space at the moment.
Until now, I don’t know about the Ronin bridge because I leverage on a secure, fast and seamless way to access the bridge, which I will reveal by the end of the article.
The attack that happened on the Ronin network is the largest as of now when we look at decentralized finance. This was around $625 Million in digital assets. From the information gathered, the hacker used the private keys & forged a fake withdrawal. The funny story about the hack was, the Ronin Team did not know about the hack until they receive a report from a user that could not withdraw 5,000 worth of Ethereum from the bridge
Further discovery revealed the compromised private key traceable to validators which are being controlled by Sky Mavis & Axie DAO.
How this happened is still a concern for me until I dig deeper into a review by one of the Ethereum blockchain Engineers who enlighten us about how validator should run.
- Validator bridges can work IF you have the engineering practices to maintain your security assumptions.
- Trust-minimized bridges are harder to build up-front but can be easier to secure down the line. Quote From This Tweet
From what I discovered, the Ronin team operates internally and if this hack happened between them, it means they have no engineering practices in place to secure those validators. Again, Sky Mavis was found running 4/9 nodes, which is more problematic.
After the Orion Protocol team’s close examination of different bridges in decentralized finance, introducing the Orion Bridge, which is the first bridge that uses atomic swap technology and enables instant trading of native assets on different blockchains for the first time, came to light…
Majorly, bridges depend on centralized entities and validators, but with Orion Bridge, you swap with only Orion Brokers, which makes it the most secured bridge in DeFi. This is a Peer-to-peer technology that enables true decentralization.
You need to learn more about Orion Bridge
In conclusion, the security of users’ assets is important, and that’s why Orion Protocol’s team works daily to bring a secured platform to the entire crypto space. Not only that, they work with the security company to achieve this vision.
