'I was angered by the hackers' greed': Axie Infinity developer

The CEO of Sky Mavis, which developed one of the world’s biggest blockchain-based play-to-earn game, said at a forum Thursday: "I was getting on a plane when my chief technology officer called about the hack. I could not do much immediately as the flight was about to take off.

"I was upset and angry because of the thieves’ greed. This is the money of many players and investors and could have a direct impact on their lives."

This was the first time Trung appeared in public since the end of last month when hackers made off with some $625-million worth of Ethereum and USDC cryptocurrencies from Axie Infinity’s Ronin network.

The Ronin network is used as a bridge between the Axie Infinity and blockchains, essentially to transfer cryptocurrency in and out of the game.

The 30-year-old said he had felt helpless when he returned home and saw his family happy and unaware of what had happened.

"I couldn’t control my emotions and burst into tears".

For the next few days he and his colleagues stayed in the office to deal with the aftermath.

Trung said his top priority was the stability of his team. He decided the company would continue to move forward and not give up.

"None of our team members wanted to stop. To keep moving forward, we have to maintain our trustworthiness and to pay back our users".

Eight days after announcing the hack, Axie Infinity said it had secured $150 million to pay users.

The funding is considered a key step in the company’s path to win back users’ trust.

Trung said he and his team have learned and grown from the experience. The main reason for the hack was that they had been careless, he admitted.

He said now they have increased the security though a shortage of skilled blockchain engineers is also a problem since this industry is still nascent.