Crypto thieves steal $100M in digital coins from US firm Harmony

LOS ANGELES – Harmony, a crypto firm in the United States, said on Friday it was robbed of approximately $100 million in digital currency, the latest in a string of cyber heists, Reuters reported. 

Harmony’s main mode of business involves developing blockchains, a decentralized digital ledger which keeps track of digital transactions of currency like crypto. 

The company tweeted it was “working with national authorities and forensic specialists to identify the culprit and retrieve the stolen funds,” without giving further details.

Harmony did not immediately respond to requests for comment sent via email and social media.

These blockchains serve to offer loans and other financial services bypassing traditional centralized banking institutions most consumers have to go through to get credit and other forms of lending. 

Harmony, based in California, said crypto thieves hacked into their software where they were able to steal a variety of valuable cryptocurrencies including bitcoin and ether. 

Companies within the crypto sector have become increasingly targeted due to the volatility of the industry and lack of regulation. 

Over $1 billion has been stolen from blockchains so far in 2022, according to London-based blockchain analytics firm Elliptic. 

Another crypto heist which made U.S. headlines involved over $625 million in Ethereum and USD Coin which was stolen from the Ronin blockchain network.

Ronin is a blockchain project used by the popular, non-fungible token (NFT)-based online game Axie Infinity, developed by publisher Sky Mavis. The Ronin network allows players to store cryptocurrency in a digital wallet and transfer it in and out of the game using what is known as a “bridge”.

Axie Infinity, which has 2.8 million daily active players, allows users to earn money by collecting, trading and playing with virtual creatures called Axies. Players have traded approximately $3.6 billion on its in-house marketplace prior to the hack.

Axie Infinity is the biggest NFT collection by all-time sales volume, according to NFT market tracker CryptoSlam. Sky Mavis raised $152 million in October from a group of investors, including Andreessen Horowitz.

The Ronin team said in a blog post that the breach was discovered in March following a report that one of its users was unable to withdraw 5,000 Ethereum from its bridge.

FOX Business contributed to this story.