Axie Infinity Undaunted By Latest Attack
In light of the Axie Infinity hack this week, some critics are questioning the security of play-to-earn gaming.
Axie posted on Twitter that its main server's MEE6 bot was attacked and a dubious Jiho account was used to falsely announce a mint. Hackers were able to send webhook messages through Discord purporting false
Projects associated with Axie, such as Cool Cats, PXN and RTFKT, have reported their admin accounts were also compromised. In response to the attack, Axie's team immediately deleted the announcement and posted on several platforms about what happened and how the situation was taken care of.
The attack was not exclusive to Axie Infinity but affected all platforms that installed the MEE6 bot. A widely used bot, MEE6 is installed on more than 18 million servers and is popular for all manner of Web3 communities.
Attacks and delays have plagued Axie Infinity this year; their native $AXS token has swung from an all-time high of $164.9 in November 2021 to $21.76 on May 19. Since the attack Axie has faced trouble raising funding and critics have disparaged the platform as unsecure. These criticisms, however, are misplaced. While the attack hurts Axie Infinity as a platform, it is actually Discord whose security should be looked into; after all, it was the MEE6 bot that was hacked.
Axie has been through this same sort of hack before and come out strong. Axie continues to be the leading platform in GameFi with some of the most popular and profitable blockchain games in their marketplace. They are also a leader in the up and coming play-and-earn (P&E) gaming model, which emphasizes community building over profit. So far the market has responded positively to P&E and Axie Infinity is in a premium position to serve gamers with the burgeoning platform.
