Gala Games has successfully recovered approximately $22 million in Ether following a significant security breach on May 20. The incident saw $200 million worth of Gala tokens minted, with a small portion sold before the wallet was frozen.
On May 21, the attacker returned 5913.2 ETH, valued at $22.3 million, closely matching the market value of the 600 million GALA tokens sold a day earlier. Gala Games attributed this recovery to their swift and effective response, alongside the involvement of federal law enforcement agencies.
In a blog post dated May 21, Gala Games revealed they employed a new feature of their GalaChain’s blocklist protocol to freeze 4.4 billion of the 5 billion GALA tokens minted within just 45 minutes of the attack. This quick action was crucial in minimizing the impact of the security breach.
Eric Schiermeyer, Gala’s co-founder and CEO, announced via X (formerly Twitter) and Discord on May 20 that the alleged attacker had been identified, including their home address. Although Gala Games has not publicly confirmed the identity or specific method of the exploit, some community members speculate the attack was executed by a security contractor who made a critical error by connecting to the wallet without using a VPN.
Schiermeyer mentioned in a Discord post that the team plans to buy back and burn the equivalent amount of GALA tokens using the returned ETH. “I don’t see anything else we should do with the ETH,” Schiermeyer stated. “We will probably buy and burn on GalaSwap.”
Furthermore, a Gala Games blog post indicated that a governance vote is underway to decide whether the 4.4 billion blocklisted GALA tokens should be considered burned.
In light of these developments, DWF Labs disclosed its purchase of 28 million GALA tokens in the open market to help stabilize the token’s value. “The security of our investments and their communities is important to us,” the firm emphasized.